jmccann@heraldsun.com; 419-6601
DURHAM -- The man who earlier this year admitted he choked and killed his stepdaughter in March on Thursday pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Ronald Stephens to spend 220 to 273 months in the custody of the N.C. Department of Correction.
That sentence works out to around 18 years to not quite 23 years behind bars for Jeffrey Hamilton Gist, and the judge before handing down the sentence told Gist he didn't deserve the relatively short amount of incarceration time he was about to give him as dictated by law. But the plea deal was the result of a mother desiring closure for her family, Assistant District Attorney David Saacks said.
Around 7 a.m. on a Saturday in March, fishermen found the partially burned body of Mylin Bullock by the Eno River near Old Oxford Highway and Snow Hill Road in northern Durham County.
Bullock was a 16-year-old student at Northern High School.
Gist initially told investigators he and Bullock argued the night before fishermen found her body. They fussed about the possibility of her transferring to a different high school, he said. She was upset and crying most of the night, and when he woke up the next morning she was gone, Gist claimed.
But Gist, 33, eventually confessed not only to the murder but also to an alleged relationship with Bullock that went beyond normal parent-child involvement. Saacks indicated there was some jealousy on Gist's part because he wasn't the main guy in Bullock's life.
So one thing led to another and Gist said he wound up choking the life out of Bullock and carrying her body to the spot where fishermen found her charred remains, Saacks said. Gist poured gasoline on his stepdaughter and set her on fire, the assistant district attorney said.
Disgust showed on the faces of other Durham County jail inmates who were in the courtroom hearing these details.
Saacks pointed out that investigators didn't find a gas can where Gist dumped Bullock's body. That's because Gist transported the gas in a bottle he said he had on standby at the home he shared with Bullock, her younger brother and their mother. Gist said he knew he'd have to use that bottle one day, Saacks explained.
Jocelyn Bullock, Mylin Bullock's mother, is a hardworking woman willing to hold down more than one job in order to take care of her family, Saacks said. And when she worked her night job, Gist assumed the role of primary caregiver for Mylin Bullock and her brother.
Those children meant and mean the world to Jocelyn Bullock, the mother told Gist when the judge gave her an opportunity to speak. She said the only reason she agreed to the plea deal instead of fighting to have Gist locked up for the rest of his life was so her son wouldn't have to relive the deadly ordeal during a trial.
"I thought I could trust you," Jocelyn Bullock told Gist. "That was my baby girl."
The distraught mother reminded Gist of the years they dated before getting married, and she brought up how she looked beyond his previous criminal record -- which didn't include violence -- with the hope that he was a changed man. And she made clear that had she been raised differently she would have pursued his punishment more passionately.
"Amen!" said a man sitting in the courtroom.
"Those are her uncles," Jocelyn Bullock said.
"I'm right here," said one of the uncles, challenging Gist. "I'm 300 pounds. Move me."
The uncle said that in reference to Gist weighing 290 pounds when he jumped on Mylin Bullock and choked her to death.
