LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada jury decided Thursday that a man should serve life in state prison without the chance of parole for breaking into a room at a hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip and killing two Vietnamese tour leaders in 2018.

Julius Damiano Deangilo Trotter, 37, was spared the death penalty by the same state court jury that found him guilty of murder, burglary and robbery in the stabbing of Sang Boi Nghia and Khoung Ba Le Nguyen at the Circus Circus hotel on Tuesday.

Defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen later said Trotter and his legal team appreciated the jury’s verdict, but that Trotter would appeal his conviction and sentence “as a normal part of the criminal justice system.”

“I think everyone is grateful that Mr. Trotter was given a life sentence,” Rasmussen told The Associated Press. “The jury itself took the death penalty off the table.”

Jurors announced their verdict following testimony from Trotter, his relatives and family members of Nghia and Nguyen to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. reported. According to the newspaper, Trotter was seen saying “thank you” to the jury after the verdict was read. Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt will announce Trotter’s sentence on Jan. 15. Trotter remains jailed in Las Vegas.

Trotter told jurors on Wednesday that he wanted to “make a positive impact on the people around me, like my family, my kids, my mother, my brothers and my sisters.”

Nghia, 38, was a mother of three who ran a tour business in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, with her husband. Nguyen, 30, was one of his employees. Their bodies were found when the tour group did not show up for their trip.

Police said hotel employees later determined that the room lock was not properly secured and found Trotter unlocked as he walked down the hotel hallway and tried the door handles.

Trotter, along with his girlfriend, Itaska Dean, were arrested following a police pursuit in Chino, California, about a week after the murders.

Rasmussen acknowledged that Trotter had a prior criminal record; He was serving five years of probation at the time of the murders after being convicted of a felony for resisting a police officer with a weapon. But Trotter also has the support of a loving family, the attorney said.

Dean pleaded guilty to evading arrest in California. He was not charged with a crime in the murders of Nghia and Nguyen and testified during Trotter’s trial.

Trotter also testified, denying that he killed Nghia and Nguyen. But police and prosecutors said she was found with items belonging to Nghia and Nguyen, including a purse, wallet, cell phone, jewelry and Vietnamese money.

The last person executed in a Nevada prison was Daryl Mack in April 2006 for a 1988 rape and murder in Reno. Mack requested lethal injection.