Asbury Lee Perkins ordered to serve life in prison for 2015 murder of Cynthia Betts

VERO BEACH — Asbury “Lee” Perkins stood silent Thursday in court as the sisters of the woman he killed — his former wife, Cynthia Betts — told a judge what a “stunningly beautiful person” she was before she was killed in 2015.

“Cindy's murder was devastating on our family and her friends to this day,” her sister, Georgette Betts, of New Jersey, said while appearing via Zoom during Perkins’ sentencing hearing. “It is incomprehensible.”

Perkins, 64, was ordered to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole for fatally shooting Betts, who was found Nov. 3, 2015, deceased in the laundry room at her home in the 2100 block of Seagrape Drive, just off State Road A1A in south Indian River County.

Perkins had shot her the day before, striking her three times, then tied garbage bags on her hands and wrapped her body in a rug, according to court records and trial testimony.

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During a six-day trial that ended Oct. 19, a jury convicted Perkins of first-degree murder with a firearm and attempted escape.

Georgette Betts, who with her sister-in-law Tammy Betts, attended Perkins’ trial, said her sister’s beauty drew people in “but her quick wit, humor and adventurous spirit is what kept people engaged.”

“She was talented, educated and a successful businesswoman,” she said, adding Cynthia Betts held many professional licenses and ran her own businesses.

All that changed, Georgette Betts said, after her sister met Perkins.

“He seemed to bring out the worst in her. For years she tolerated his drinking problems, his arrogance and his inability to be a productive human being,” Georgette Betts said. “They had a very dysfunctional relationship …she was the only person in his life that loved to care for him.”

Court records show Betts and Perkins, who married in 1992, had a long history of domestic violence, which included at least one restraining order against Perkins. During their 24-year relationship, the two had shared a business, a parts brokerage firm named Target Electronics Inc., that dissolved after Betts' murder.

Cynthia Betts’ murder was discovered after her now-deceased father, William Betts, called the Indian River County Sheriff's Office asking for a deputy to check on her at the home she had shared on and off with Perkins since their divorce in 2009.

A deputy who visited early in the day left a note on the door when no one answered.

When deputies returned later and first encountered Perkins — who appeared drunk, wearing only boxer shorts — he said Betts was visiting relatives in New Jersey.

After deputies confirmed with Betts’ family that wasn't true, they kicked in the front door and found her body in a laundry room with bullet wounds. In a bedroom, deputies found a .38-caliber pistol on a dresser and blood on a bed.

Perkins was immediately taken into custody.

Court papers show during his arrest, Perkins described to Indian River County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ross Partee “how he put plastic bags on (Betts’) hands to keep the blood from flowing all over the place.”

Throughout his October trial, Perkins represented himself as his own attorney and never denied killing Betts. He suggested the murder was “a sudden impulse killing” done with “no planning or design.”

He claimed he wasn’t in his right mind when he killed Betts and recalled little afterward.

“The last thing that I remember of the shooting incident, was us crouching down. Me, you know, firing the last two shots,” he told jurors.

Circuit Judge Dan Vaughn also ordered Perkins to serve five years in prison for a brief but failed attempt to escape custody after his arrest by leaving an interrogation room at the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office when a deputy went to get him water.

Tammy Betts, who also appeared via Zoom from New Jersey, told Vaughn attending Perkins’ trial, made clear his “troubling and disturbing” lack of remorse.

“Her life was not yours to take. However many problems that you had as a couple, the choice was always yours to walk away,” Tammy Betts told Perkins. “It was always there, and you didn't.”

His demeanor at the trial, Tammy Betts said, proved “the only thing that ever meant anything in this life to you was material things: your money and your commerce and your jewelry.“

“Absolutely no regard for Cindy's life,” she said.

Melissa E. Holsman is the legal affairs reporter for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers, and is writer and co-host of Uncertain Terms, a true crime podcast. Reach her at melissa.holsman@tcpalm.com.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: A judge orders Asbury Perkins to serve life in prison for 2015 murder