LAS VEGAS — A Nevada jury ruled Thursday that a man should serve life in state prison without the possibility of parole for breaking into a Las Vegas Strip hotel-casino room and killing two ringleaders of Vietnamese tour in 2018.

Julius Damiano Deangilo Trotter, 37, was spared the death penalty by the same state court jury that found him guilty Tuesday of murder, robbery and burglary in the stabbings of Sang Boi Nghia and Khoung Ba Le Nguyen at the Circus Circus Hotel.

Defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen later said that Trotter and his legal team appreciated the jury’s decision, but that Trotter would appeal his conviction and sentence “as a normal part of the criminal justice system.”

“I think everyone is grateful that Mr. Trotter was sentenced to life in prison,” Rasmussen told The Associated Press. “The jury took the death penalty off the table themselves.”

Jurors issued their decision after testimony from Trotter, his relatives and family members of Nghia and Nguyen, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Trotter was seen saying “thank you” to the jury after the verdict was read, the paper reported. Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt scheduled Trotter’s sentencing for Jan. 15. He remains locked up in Las Vegas.

Trotter told jurors Wednesday that he wanted to have “a positive impact on the people around me, in terms of my family, my children, my mother, my brother and sisters and so on.”

Nghia, 38, was a mother of three who operated a travel business with her husband in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Nguyen, 30, was one of her employees. Their bodies were found after they failed to show up for a group trip.

Police said hotel employees later determined that the room’s lock had not been properly secured and that Trotter apparently found it unlocked while walking down the hotel lobby and trying door handles.

Trotter was arrested about a week after the murders with his girlfriend, Itaska Dean, following a police chase in Chino, California.

Rasmussen acknowledged that Trotter had a criminal record — he was serving five years’ probation at the time of the murders after a felony conviction for resisting a police officer with a weapon. But the lawyer said Trotter also had the support of a loving family.

Dean pleaded guilty in California to evading arrest. She was not charged with a crime in the murders of Nghia and Nguyen and testified during Trotter’s trial.

Trotter also testified that he killed Nghia and Nguyen. But police and prosecutors said it was found with items belonging to Nghia and Nguyen, including a purse, wallets, cellphone, jewelry and Vietnamese money.

The last person sentenced to death in a Nevada prison was Daryl Mack in April 2006 for a 1988 rape and murder in Reno. Mack asked to be given a lethal injection.