A man previously convicted of killing a 78-year-old Upper St. Clair woman in 2003 and given the death penalty appeared in court Tuesday and was resentenced to a life prison term.

Patrick Stollar, 45, was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2008. Two days later, a jury recommended he be put to death.

However, Stollar was awarded a new sentencing hearing in 2021 after the prosecution conceded that the jurors should have been instructed by the trial judge, David R. Cashman, that they were required to find Stollar’s lack of a criminal history as a mitigating factor.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Elliot Howsie, who took over the case after Cashman retired, ordered Stollar to serve life in prison plus 15 to 30 years for robbery and burglary.

Stollar, who represented himself during the guilt phase of his trial, was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery and burglary in the death of Jean Heck, who was found dead in her home by neighbors on June 4, 2003. She had been beaten, strangled, stomped on and stabbed.

Officers at the scene found the phone number and address for Stollar’s mother on Heck’s kitchen counter and then went to his place of employment.

When officers tracked Stollar to an apartment where he’d been staying with a co-worker, he admitted, “I killed that woman,” police said.

He later told investigators that he went to Heck’s home to rob and kill her. He led police to the clothes he wore that day, as well as the knife he used.

During the penalty phase of the trial, Stollar presented evidence of mental illness. But the jury agreed that the aggravating factor in the case — that he committed the killing in the course of a robbery — outweighed any mitigating factors.

After Stollar was awarded a new sentencing hearing, the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office chose not to pursue the death penalty, instead allowing the first-degree murder charge to convert to the mandatory penalty of life in prison without parole.

The DA’s office said it agreed to do so after consulting with Heck’s family. The life sentence, plus 15 to 30 years, “permits the family to receive some semblance of finality,” said First Assistant District Attorney Rebecca D. Spangler.

Stollar’s current defense attorney, Thomas N. Farrell, told Howsie on Tuesday that his client has done well in state prison.

Stollar has not received any misconducts since he started serving his time there in 2008 and has a job cleaning the showers.

“He does well in prison, and he’ll stay there for the rest of his life,” Farrell said.

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