WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – The man convicted of killing a Winston-Salem mother in 2018 will spend the rest of his life in prison.

The judge handed down Mario Bennett’s sentence this morning in a Forsyth County courtroom and decided not to impose the death penalty, which was on the table.

In December 2018, investigators found Shantika Dunlap dead in a dumpster on Country Club Road days after she disappeared. She was then 30 years old and had four children. Now her children are being raised by her grandmother.

Bennett has been in the Forsyth County Jail since his arrest in Florida, two weeks after his crime.

He will now begin his life sentence in prison.

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