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CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) – The murder of Chicago Police Officer Thomas Wortham IV not only affected his family and his South Side community, but hundreds of others whose lives he touched, a Cook County judge told a packed courtroom Wednesday before sentencing two men to natural life in prison without parole.

The courtroom echoed with powerful and emotional testimony in the sentencing of two men convicted of murdering Wortham in 2010.

The fate of Paris McGee and his codefendant Toyious Taylor was not an issue at sentencing, the law required life without parole for the crime.

But the raw emotions from Wortham’s father, mother and only sister, resonated beyond the courtroom because of the pilot program that allowed TV cameras to be there as they read their victims impact statement.

“These defendants don’t deserve mercy, they surely didn’t show Thomas any that night. They did an unforgivable cowardly thing,” said Sandra Wortham, the officer’s younger sister.

She recounted how years ago her parents told her that they decided to have a second child so Thomas would not be alone.

“The evil irony of his murder is that I will now be the one alone, Sandra Wortham said, choking back tears.

Thomas Wortham III, himself a retired Chicago police sergeant, recalled how he and his son were fishing and golfing buddies. The murder he said had destroyed their family.

“When they killed my son they didn’t just kill anybody, they killed a man who spent his whole life trying to help people and make the world a better place,” Wortham said.

Officer Wortham was off duty when he was killed outside his parents Chatham home in a gun battle that ensued after McGee and Taylor and two other men tried to steal Wortham’s new motorcycle.

“When someone you love is murdered, part of the aftermath of torture is imagining their last moments,” Sandra Wortham said.

Carolyn Wortham recounted what a man her son had arrested shared with her after the murder.

“He said, ‘I met your son once. He locked me up.’

Wortham said she did not know how to respond to the stranger.

“Before I could say anything, he continued: ‘I did something wrong and I went to jail, but I went with my dignity because your son treated me like a man. I’m sorry about what happened to him,’” Wortham said through tears.

Afterwards the Worthams expressed hope the cameras might make would-be criminals consider the consequences of their actions before committing a crime.

“Stop and think, these young men are going to spend the rest of their lives in jail. It’s not worth it. Think, do not do it,” Thomas Wortham said.

Source: FOX 32