When it was finally his turn to speak on Tuesday, Mark Kelly rose to his feet and turned toward the family of the 32-year-old woman he killed in December 2008.

"I'm sorry for hurting you," the 39-year-old said. "I'm so sorry for your daughter. I wish I'd never bought that gun."

"So do we," said Leah Allan, Julia Ostercamp's sister.

A Santa Fe judge sentenced Kelly to 16 years in prison — the maximum — for Kelly's guilty plea in May to second-degree murder in his girlfriend's death. However, before that, family members emotionally described a woman who loved to sing and dance and enjoyed Halloween the most of all holidays.

"She was an incredible person we no longer have in our lives," said Allan, who lives in Littleton, Colo.

Allan, a decade older than her sister, said she spent many summers baby-sitting Ostercamp, allowing her to climb all over Allan and "follow me around constantly."

"She used to flirt with my boyfriends," Allan said. "She always wanted to know what I was doing. She used to drive me crazy and make me laugh at the same time."

At the time of her death, Ostercamp worked at Home Depot, while Kelly worked at the state Environment Department's Solid Waste Division. Ostercamp had only moved to Santa Fe about a year before she was killed.

Melissa Robinson, who described herself as Ostercamp's best friend, said she had begged her friend not to go to New Mexico from Texas with Kelly.

"You took the life of the most beautiful, amazing woman I've ever known," Robinson said, sobbing. "You held her down and you shot her, and just like that, Julia J. Ostercamp was gone. She was loving, trusting and forgiving. She should still be here."

William Golden, who was previously engaged to Ostercamp and remained a close friend, said that just before she was killed he had planned to drive to Santa Fe from Lubbock, Texas, to pick her up and take her back to Texas.

"I can't understand how somebody can say, 'I love you,' and take out a gun and shoot them," Golden said.

Before the killing on Dec. 12, 2008, Ostercamp and Kelly had been drinking at a local brewery and gotten into an argument. The couple had become intoxicated enough at the bar that the waitress cut them off, said Jacquelyn Robins, Kelly's lawyer.

They continued arguing when they returned to the home they shared in the 2000 block of Avenida de las Alturas, Robins has said. At one point, Kelly retrieved a Ruger 9mm handgun from a case and ejected the magazine, thinking that he unloaded the gun.

He then put the gun to Ostercamp's head and pulled the trigger. Robins has said he didn't know a bullet remained in the chamber. Kelly immediately called 911 and was cooperative with police, Robins said.

"When you mix alcohol and guns, you almost always have a tragedy," state District Judge Michael Vigil said. "You pointed a gun at another human being to terrify that human being. Maybe you didn't mean to kill her, but you did kill her. It's just a total disregard for the sanctity of life."

After Vigil handed down the maximum sentence, Kelly's mother, sitting in the front row of the courtroom, bent over and began sobbing. "I'm sorry, Mom," Kelly said as he was led from the courtroom.

That seemed to set his mother off, who then screamed, "My son is not a murderer. You stupid people, it was an accident!"

The bailiff and sheriff's deputies attempted to calm her down, but she told them to "shut up."

"I'm not running the Jerry Springer Show here," bailiff Fred Encinias said.

She eventually was led from the courtroom by family members.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.