AUSTIN - After deliberating for about three hours, a Travis County jury found that Milton Dwayne Gobert is a continuing threat to society and that there are no mitigating factors that warrant a sentence of life in prison.

State District Judge Bob Perkins sentenced Gobert to death in accordance with the verdict.

Gobert had no obvious reaction to the verdict. His family was not in court.

Gobert, 37, was convicted last week in the October 2003 stabbing death of Mel Kernena Cotton, 30, at her North Austin apartment.

Cotton's sister, Ethel McPherson, took the stand and called her sister "an angel."

While she was talking Gobert cut McPherson off by screaming: "That was no angel, that was a (expletive).

He then shouted more profanity at Cotton's family and then at Perkins as he was escorted from the courtroom.