Family of murdered diplomat's wife speaks at sentencing

Their voices trembling with barely concealed anger, the family of a diplomat's wife Monday excoriated the Medford man who stabbed her to death last year in Bellport - then heard a judge sentence him to serve 25 years to life in prison.

As Robert Schiavo, 21, listened a few feet away, Nancy McKinley's children, husband and brother-in-law took turns at a podium in a Riverhead courtroom to describe the pain caused when Schiavo killed McKinley on March 8, 2009, while she was visiting the village where she was raised.

"I thought I had developed a realistic understanding of man's capability for arbitrary cruelty," said McKinley's son, Harley McKinley, of Washington, D.C., an intelligence analyst who served in Iraq with the U.S. Navy. "Nothing could have prepared me for the futility and ugliness of what Robert Schiavo did to my mother, or its effect on me, my family, and so many other individuals and communities."

Nancy McKinley, 61, of Washington, D.C., was staying at a friend's house when Schiavo entered in search of money. Startled when a light went on, Schiavo took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her six times in a bedroom, police and prosecutors said.

Schiavo pleaded guilty last month to first-degree murder and second-degree murder for McKinley's death. He also pleaded guilty to second-degree burglary for a December 2008 house robbery in Bellport.

State Supreme Court Justice Robert W. Doyle gave Schiavo the maximum sentence for second-degree murder - 25 years to life in prison. Schiavo could have been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Outside court, Assistant District Attorney Janet Albertson and McKinley's husband, Brunson McKinley, said they were satisfied with the sentence.

Speaking in court before Schiavo was sentenced, Brunson McKinley, a former State Department official, described his wife of 38 years as "a natural diplomat" and "a devoted, creative and wise mother."

McKinley said his wife was "a wonderful representative of America to the world" who established a children's library in Cold War Berlin and evacuated war orphans in Vietnam - but was killed while visiting her bucolic hometown.

"It was there in Bellport that she met her senseless and tragic end," McKinley said. "Bellport, our haven of peace and happiness in a world full of trouble, had become the scene of a nightmarish crime and family tragedy."

Before Doyle pronounced sentence, Schiavo said he was "very remorseful" about the murder. "I am not a bad person," he said. "I made a bad decision that only got worse for everyone."