A ex-deputy in the Alameda County Sheriff's Department was sentenced Tuesday to 50 years to life in prison for the 2022 murders of a Dublin couple inside their home.

It was a case that roiled the sheriff's department at the time, when a young deputy on the force was found to have not quite passed a psych evaluation before being given a gun and law enforcement duties, and he then used his gun to kill a woman he had a romantic interest in, along with her husband. Alameda County Deputy Sheriff Devin Williams, then 24 years old, turned himself in for the crime, but the subsequent fallout led to 47 other deputies being put on leave for having similarly questionable psych evals.

Today, as Bay Area News Group reports, Williams was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison — back to back 25-year sentences — after being convicted last month on two counts of first-degree murder.

Relatives gave emotional, brutal testimony prior to the sentencing, including two witnesses to the execution-style murders. Maria Tran, 42, and her husband Benison Tran, 57, were both shot in head after Williams made threats against Maria, and then broke into the couple's home. As Bay Area News Group reports, Maria's brother, Dalton Tran, recounted watching Williams first shoot his brother in law, and then walking down stairs to shoot Maria in the head and her husband again as well.

Their son, now 16, reportedly held his mother in his arms as she died, and Maria's mother, Kim Lee, was also visiting at the house when the murders occurred.

As the Chronicle reports, the son provided a letter to the court, read aloud by Deputy District Attorney Ted McGarvey, addressing Williams and saying he was "the person who took everything from me," and that he was now left with lifelong "agony and emptiness."

"You destroyed my foundation," the teenager said. And, he added, "You caused a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone."

The grandmother also addressed the court through a Vietnamese translator, tearfully speaking about how "helpless" she felt after the killings.

While the defense team asked that Williams serve two concurrent 25-year terms before the possibility of parole, McGarvey argued for consecutive terms, and Judge Jennifer Madden agreed.

Madden told Williams, per Bay Area News Group, given that he took an oath to protect and serve, "For you to commit these acts, it's really unthinkable."

Williams apologized to the family, and said, "I know I'll never forgive myself."

Williams and Maria Tran had reportedly struck up a romantic relationship while they were both working at John George Psychiatric Hospital in San Leandro. Tran was a nurse there, while Williams oversaw inmates who were sent there for treatment. They dated for some span of time in the seven months between February 2022 and the murders in September 2022, prior to which Tran appeared to be trying to cut off ties, and Williams was sending threatening texts.

The case was one of a number of flashpoints for critics of DA Pamela Price and proponents of the recall effort, which has now succeeded in ousting her. Price had vowed, as a progressive prosecutor, to limit the use of sepecial-circumstances charges and to avoid life sentences without parole for offenders under the age of 25.

She and her office dropped charges against Williams and refiled them, dropped the special-circumstances charges filed by her predecessor, which led to loud protests earlier this year by the Trans' family.

In requesting the consecutive sentences, as the Chronicle reports, McGarvey told the judge that Williams had "received his break" with the dropping of those charges, and that 50 years is "quite frankly is not enough for what he did."

Previously: Family of Murdered Dublin Couple Outraged Over Attempt to Reduce Charges for Former Alameda County Deputy