Following testimony that the woman she killed was a drug dealer, Penny Bartlett was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the second degree murder of Teresa Gamboa Friday in White Pine District Court.
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Bartlett was found guilty of second degree murder this August and could have faced life in prison without parole.
During Friday’s hearing it was Gamboa who was portrayed as a violent drug dealer with aspirations of becoming Ely’s Scar Face.
Bartlett’s lawyers called five witnesses during the nearly three-hour sentencing hearing including Summer Hauser of Ely.
Hauser said she had been a friend of both Bartlett and Gamboa and that not only did Gamboa support herself by selling drugs but was known to carry a knife on her person.
Hauser also testified that Gamboa wanted to be the “top dog” in Ely’s small drug trade.
It was a bloody and bleeding Bartlett who flagged down a passing motorist late last month two miles south of the Lages Junction in August 2009. The traveler who was not identified by police called 911 and reported what appeared to be a one car accident. A trooper from the Nevada highway Patrol was dispatched and when he arrived on scene found Bartlett and the body of Gamboa half way out of the vehicle.
According to the NHP report Gamboa appeared to have been the driver of the vehicle and Bartlett the passenger.
Earlier that year Bartlett was arrested on March 31 for driving under the influence and was sentenced to one month in the White Pine County jail. She began her sentence on July 28 and was released two days later.
The two women, who shared the same house and life in Ely were scheduled to be arraigned the next morning in Elko District Court on three counts each of drug possession and use.
They never made it.
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