Steven Vogel, 32, was called a "cold-blooded murderer," by Judge Shawn Showers, who sentenced him to a life sentence this week.
BET reported Thursday that the Iowa man could not be charged with a hate crime, despite the victim's family calling it a "lynching."
Michael Williams, a 44-year-old Black man, was found burning in a rural ditch last year after being strangled. Department of Public Service Special Agent Adam DeCamp told KCCI that Williams' body was "wrapped in cloth, plastic and carpet, then wrapped in duct tape before his body was transported in a truck to rural Kellogg on Sept. 16 and set on fire."
Judge Showers went on to say that Vogel had "hate in your heart."
"These sentences are made for people like you who commit these horrific offenses and take others’ lives without any regard for consequences," he said at the sentencing hearing.
Williams' parents told Iowa Public Radio, “It’s putting that rope around his neck and holding it for over six minutes, causing his death, is the definition of a hanging. A lynching. A white man lynched a Black man over a white woman.”
His family went on to compare it to the slaying of Emmett Till, who allegedly flirted with a white woman.
An all-white jury convicted Vogel last week and he is one of four people associated with the death.
