TAMPA — The same jury that found Ronny Tremel Walker guilty of murdering 14-year-old Nilexia Alexander decided Friday that he should spend the rest of his life in prison.

After a two-day penalty hearing, the panel of five men and seven women discussed the case for a little less than two hours before rejecting a death sentence.

Hillsborough Circuit Judge Robin Fuson immediately imposed a life sentence, the only other option.

Walker showed no immediate reaction upon hearing the jury’s decision, but moments later as he sat at a defense table, he removed his glasses and gazed at the jury.

As sheriff’s deputies placed him in handcuffs, Walker turned toward Ashley Alexander, Nilexia’s mother, who wept in the courtroom gallery.

“I didn’t kill your daughter, ma’am,” Walker said. “I didn’t kill your baby.”

“You should have gotten death,” Alexander shouted.

Veronica Denson, the daughter of Elaine Caldwell, whom Walker was previously convicted of killing, shouted back at him.

“You’re a natural born killer,” Denson said. “You’ve been killing for a long time. You just got caught this time.”

Sheriff’s deputies ushered both women out of the courtroom.

In closing arguments Friday afternoon, Walker’s defense urged the jury to choose mercy, emphasizing that the guilty verdict this week ensures that he will face retribution.

“Keep in mind, Mr. Walker is severely punished for what he did to Miss Alexander with life in prison without parole,” Assistant Public Defender Carolyn Schlemmer said. “He will never walk free again.”

The jury’s decision capped a two-day penalty hearing in which prosecutors focused heavily on Walker’s prior conviction for another homicide — a 2003 home invasion robbery in which the victim, Caldwell, was shot in her head. Walker ultimately pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge for that crime and spent several years in prison.

He’d been free about six months when Nilexia was killed.

She was a troubled teen who’d run away from home, and she wandered one early morning through the Belmont Heights neighborhood. Surveillance cameras recorded footage of a black Ford Fusion as it cruised Tampa’s darkened streets as Nilexia sat in the backseat.

Minutes after she got in the car, it turned down a dead-end stretch of Floribraska Avenue, made a U-turn, then stopped.

Robert Creed, a passenger in the car who later pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact, testified that Walker began to argue with the girl there. The dispute had something to do with sex. Creed said Walker pulled a gun and shot Nilexia once in the car, then again multiple times after she got out.

Walker’s past conviction for the violent felony was one of the aggravating factors prosecutors cited to justify capital punishment. They also argued Nilexia’s murder was committed in a “cold, calculated and premeditated” manner.

In the state’s closing argument, Assistant State Attorney Chinwe Fossett reiterated much of the evidence the jury used to find Walker guilty, asserting that it showed he planned and thought about the killing before it happened.

There was the drive to a darkened area, the carrying of a loaded weapon, the confrontation, the multiple gunshots. All of it, the prosecutor argued, suggested premeditation.

“On May 6 of 2022, the defendant, Ronny Walker, made up his mind that was the day he was going to kill Nilexia Alexander,” Fossett said.

The defense, though, countered that there was no evidence of “heightened” premeditation that could support a death sentence. At the same time, they argued that Walker’s life circumstances and personal character weighed against death.

His mother, Emma Hamilton, detailed her son’s chaotic early life. He was afflicted with pneumonia and bronchitis shortly after his birth. He suffered seizures as a child and was prescribed medication. He once rolled out a two-story window and injured his head. He stammers sometimes when he speaks.

He never knew his father. He grew up largely in public low-income housing. He was one of six siblings, for whom his mother struggled to provide.

His school records indicated he didn’t advance past the 6th grade. At age 9, he was deemed “emotionally disturbed.” Two years later, records labeled him “profoundly mentally handicapped.”

When Walker was 10, his mother missed a medical appointment. State social workers got involved and split up the children. He and two brothers went to live with an aunt while his sisters went elsewhere.

He became accustomed to life in some of East Tampa’s toughest neighborhoods, where he was exposed to drug dealing. He did poorly in school and never graduated.

Do you still love your son? Hamilton was asked.

“Yes,” she said.

The jury heard much of the same from one of Walker’s sisters, his niece, a cousin and his son’s mother. Walker has three children. He carried pictures of them.

A year before he was accused of murdering Nilexia, his oldest son was killed in a shooting. He visited his grave daily.

The jury appeared to heed the words of the defense.

“If you simply see even a small spark of humanity in Mr. Walker,” Schlemmer told the jury, “even if no one else sees it, you can give it the weight of life.”