When offered a chance to plead for mercy, Streator killer Tyler Skerett didn’t express remorse. Instead, he told his sentencing judge that he was wrongly convicted.

“I had nothing to do with it,” the 31-year-old said Friday in La Salle County Circuit Court, adding later, “I’m not a violent person. I’ve sold drugs, but I never hurt nobody.

“It was just wrong place, wrong time, that’s it.”

Although a show of remorse wouldn’t have done him much good – his best-case scenario was release at age 76 – the statement fell flat with Circuit Judge Michelle A. Vescogni. She sentenced him to 117 years in prison for killing Camryn Merritt in an Easter Sunday shooting that injured two others.

“I cannot find one mitigating factor,” the judge ruled, citing Skerett’s criminal history and “broad daylight” shooting as factors in aggravation. “He has zero remorse.”

Vescogni actually rejected prosecutors’ call for natural life – that is, life with no shot at parole – but instead imposed a series of consecutive prison terms, starting with 65 for first-degree murder plus additional time for the two attempted murders.

Skerett declined to testify at trial, preferring to let his lawyers try to poke holes in the state’s case against him.

Public defender Ryan Hamer had argued that there were no eyewitnesses – neither of the survivors would name their assailant – and police never retrieved a murder weapon, fingerprints or DNA tying Skerett to the scene or the Chevy Cruze from which the shots were fired.

“The state has done a fine job of telling you a story,” Hamer said, “but at the end of the day, it’s just a theory.”

Investigators caught a break when a camera at a Clark gas station recorded the Cruze and showed a masked man emerge from the driver’s seat. Footage recorded the day of the shooting from inside an Ottawa residence showed Skerett wearing those same clothes and with a mask lowered below his chin. Linking Skerett to the clothes and to the vehicle persuaded the jury that he was guilty of murder.

At sentencing Friday, Hamer urged the judge to consider imposing the minimum sentence of 45 years, citing Skerett’s troubled upbringing and long struggles with alcohol and drugs.

Prosecutor Laura Hall argued for natural life, pointing out the potential for bystanders to have been killed. Hall said the shooting took place in the afternoon in downtown Streator – “The immense risk to others is shocking” – and a deterrent sentence was needed to curb the exploding volume of gun violence.

“There is no question that we have developed a gun violence epidemic in this county,” she said.

After the hearing, La Salle County State’s Attorney Joe Navarro said he was grateful that Vescogni agreed to make an example of Skerett to deter would-be gun perpetrators.

“I’ve argued before about the need for deterrence,” Navarro said. “People say that doesn’t work. I disagree with that. I’m hopeful for the people of La Salle County, in particular of Streator, that [deterrence] does work for them.”