LAKE ANDES -- Steve Cournoyer III was sentenced Thursday to 60 years in prison for using a baseball bat to kill one man and severely injure a woman in a Wagner apartment earlier this year.
Cournoyer, 35 at the time of the incident, was sentenced to 90 years in prison with 45 years suspended on the first-degree manslaughter charges, according to Sara Rabern, spokeswoman for the South Dakota Attorney General's Office. He was then sentenced to 15 years for the aggravated assault charge, to run concurrent with the prior sentence.
Cournoyer will be eligible for parole in approximately 22½ years.
Judge Bruce Anderson presided over the court proceedings Thursday at the Charles Mix County courthouse.
In a plea agreement with the state, Cournoyer pleaded guilty in September to one count of first-degree manslaughter and one count of aggravated assault.
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The charges stem from an incident that occurred Feb. 24 at a Wagner apartment, where Cournoyer beat Tamara Brugier, 42, who occupied the apartment, with a baseball bat and caused the death of Michael "Chico" Costello, 47, of Wagner.
The assault left Brugier hospitalized with life-threatening injuries.
According to the clerk of courts in Charles Mix County, Anderson did not order Cournoyer to pay any financial obligations to the state or the victims.
