By Joline Gutierrez Krueger - Albuquerque Tribune Reporter

Karl Knapp said nothing before an Albuquerque judge sentenced him today to 76 years in prison for a terrorizing rampage that left three people dead and many others shattered.

"One person should not be allowed to do so much damage," Assistant District Attorney Judith Faviell said in asking state District Judge Albert S. "Pat" Murdoch to render the maximum sentence.

Murdoch complied, ordering Knapp, 49, to serve two consecutive life terms for the Jan. 3, 2003, first-degree murders of his estranged girlfriend, Jane Johnston, 42, and her boss, Steve Goodwin, 49. The life terms are 30 years each.

Knapp will also serve 15 years for the second-degree murder of Greg Maguire, 49, an employee at a neighboring business. A firearm enhancement included with that charge added another year.

Knapp will also serve the maximum sentences, including firearm enhancements, for each of the 18 remaining charges for which a jury convicted him on Thursday.

Those sentences will run concurrently with the murder sentences - a total of 76 years.

Knapp, who gave a nod to an unidentified woman in the courtroom before being led away in handcuffs, declined to speak before his sentencing. His attorney, Jeff Rein, told the court Knapp did not want his words to detract from the proceedings.

But friends and family of the three victims had plenty to say, one of them calling Knapp "one of Satan's best."

"We have been waiting 589 days to close a chapter in my life and will try to move forward," said Johnston's 18-year-old daughter, Samantha Johnston.

The teen said her mother's death was especially wrenching because Knapp knew that the teen's father was dying of cancer and that the slaying would leave her and her two siblings orphaned.

Her father died 14 months after the shootings, she said.

Goodwin's wife, Roberta Goodwin, told the court that today her husband would have celebrated his 51st birthday. But instead of cake and candles, she would be buying flowers to lay at his grave.

Maguire's brother, Brian Maguire, spoke of lives broken, of washing the blood from his brother's glasses, of cringing still every time his cell phone rings, fearful the news on the other end will be just as devastating as it was that night.

"There will be no closure for the victims," he said. "There will be no understanding of the actions of Karl Knapp."

The shootings took place at Posh Limited, a window furnishings store where Johnston and Goodwin worked, and then spilled out toward neighboring Poulin Design Remodeling, where employee Maguire was shot.

Employees at both stores near near Washington Street and Prospect Avenue Northeast recalled during the two-week trial their moments of terror when they crouched behind workstations or ran outside as bullets flew.

One of the Poulin employees recently died of a heart attack, possibly because he had to relive the trauma of that day by testifying at Knapp's trial, Faviell said she learned this weekend.

"And all of this was done with no remorse, not then and not now," said Maguire's wife, Jill Coppedge.

Prosecutors Faviell and Julie Altwies contend Knapp had calculated the killings for months after his 2-year relationship with Johnston disintegrated.

Defense attorneys Rein and Mark Horton argued the shootings were spontaneous, alcohol-fueled acts that deserved only second-degree murder convictions.