Circuit Judge Mark Jones handed down what he called a "just sentence" of life in prison to Pablo Solano Jimenez Thursday afternoon for the 2010 bludgeoning death of Tracy Heshmaty.

"The verdict was just and supported by the weight of the evidence," Jones told Jimenez. "There is no mystery to the sentence I must give you, which, frankly, is the sentence you deserve."

Jimenez, 29, displayed no emotion as he stood bound by chains in the center of the courtroom while Jones spoke.

"Another human life has been taken and nothing I, you, or anyone in this courtroom can say is going to change that," Jones said. "She's gone and you're responsible."

Jones called the murder "tragic" and "unnecessary."

Jimenez declined to speak at his sentencing.

On June 29, a Key West jury found Jimenez guilty of first-degree murder. He also had been charged with robbery with a deadly weapon, but jurors handed down a conviction on a lesser charge of petty theft.

Jimenez bludgeoned 37-year-old Heshmaty with a rock during an argument in a Simonton Street parking lot in the early morning hours of May 31, 2010.

Surveillance video showed both buying beer at a Truman Avenue pharmacy. Using a witness description and the video footage, detectives later located Jimenez at a convenience store.

At a trailer where Jimenez lived, detectives found spattered blood on a bicycle, and clothes in a nearby trash can that matched what Jimenez was wearing in the pharmacy video.

Assistant Public Defender Trish Docherty told Jones Thursday that there will be an appeal, and she advised her client not to make a statement to the court prior to sentencing.

alinhardt@keysnews.com