Philadelphia- A photographer who admitted killing Canadian adult film actress Natel King last year after a photo shoot in Conshohocken has been sentenced to 24 to 51 years in state prison.
Anthony J. Frederick, 47, his wife, and two grown daughters wept as he begged Montgomery County Court Judge William T. Nicholas for mercy.
“I am sincerely sorry,” Frederick said as he stood facing King’s family just before the judge rendered his sentence. “All I can do is recognize the wrong I have done and apologize. I am truly sorry for everything that was done.”
King’s mother, Jackie King, ran out of the courtroom before Frederick could finish his apology.
Earlier yesterday, Frederick’s codefendant and photo assistant, Jennifer Mitkus, 30, of Oaks, was sentenced to six to 23 months in county prison on charges of lying to police, abuse of corpse, and criminal conspiracy. She pleaded guilty in May. She also was ordered to immediately undergo psychiatric care after a doctor testified that she suffers from a severe personality disorder that he classified as “a notch above schizophrenia.”
Mitkus also wept as she apologized to King’s family, saying: “I need help, and I wish to pursue it with all my heart. I clearly see the sorrow I caused so many people.”
Frederick, of Lower Providence, pleaded guilty in February to third-degree murder, abuse of corpse, and related charges. He operated a basement studio at a home in the 100 block of Third Avenue in Conshohocken, where he said he stabbed King to death on Feb. 29, 2004, after he told her he didn’t have all the money he owed her for posing nude.
Frederick said in earlier statements and maintained as he spoke yesterday that King initiated the altercation.
Several defense witnesses, including Frederick’s two daughters and wife, said he was abusing Ritalin, which he was taking for depression. They testified that the drug influenced his personality.
But Nicholas, who called Frederick a “cold and calculating individual,” said “this is not like rocks being thrown into the crowd. A woman is dead because of a malicious killing.”
Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. who sought state prison time for Mitkus, said he was disappointed in her sentence but pleased with the outcome in Frederick’s case. He said the third-degree plea was Frederick’s “excuse to ameliorate what was done, but Judge Nicholas didn’t buy, and I think the sentence reflects that.”
King, 23, a Toronto-area native, starred in pornographic media as Taylor Sumers and billed herself as the Sexy Canadian. A passerby discovered her nude body March 23, 2004, in a trash-strewn ravine off River Road in Whitemarsh.
Both Frederick and Mitkus initially told police investigating King’s disappearance that King left the Conshohocken studio Feb. 29 after being paid $900, but police found evidence of her blood inside the studio and in Frederick’s sport-utility vehicle.
In their victim impact statements, King’s father, sister and cousin described the trauma of their lives after the ordeal.
“Sometimes when I am really down,” said King’s father, Daniel King, “I try and tell myself that Natel is gone off to a university and is doing all the things that she planned to do, and that one day she will be home again.”