Completely agree with you. It wouldn't make sense for him to get 99 years. Hard criminals with several felonies are not even given the max often times when they reoffend.
Nah. An abduction like this is not something that a jury is going to give a pass on, just because he hasn't been caught doing it before. This is not one of those crimes in which a jury will think, "Hey, this isn't so bad. Poor little 'enrique' just needs a slap on the wrist, so let's kinda look the other way."
And beyond that, I think EA will get 99 because of specific dynamics that will play out in the penalty phase of this case.
In the penalty phase, he's already been convicted, and a decision on the proper amount of justice to dispense is going to be made by the ones who just declared him guilty BARD. They know he did it, with CM removed permanently from her life, while he is continuing on.
In that context, her wounded family will be talking to them in the penalty phase, about the impact of this crime on their lives. And then they will remind the jury: he knows, and he still is cruelly refusing to tell the family what he did with her. And the jury, having just convicted him, will also be aware: yep, he abducted her so he knows what he did with her, and he's not helping.
See, the problem is that "refusal to help in any way" will define who he is for the ones deciding how much punishment he needs. And with his silence on her whereabouts, there are only two options:
(1) he's not telling while she's alive somewhere - which means he wants to prolong the abduction, is sadistic, a torturer, doesn't care about her family or her, may have cruel intent going forward, wants to continue to inflict pain, and more...or,
(2) he's not telling where she is because he killed her - which then means he's a killer covering up a murder.
Then the jury will decide, what do we do with a sadistic sociopath who has no regard for others, or a killer. We have one or the other.
Neither of those possibilities would imo ever motivate a jury to any degree of leniency, so all roads then lead to 99 years.
As I've been saying for some time, it's EA's refusal (or willingness) to talk - tell what he did, tell her family where he put her, provide closure to victims, and work a deal - that's going to seal his fate. And imo as time goes on, the deal he can get for talking is going to get worse and worse - accompanied by the risk that if she is found, it goes away entirely.
