Stephen Headley pleaded guilty June 5 to the murder of 22-year-old Nicole Ayres. But even though prosecutors plan to ask for life imprisonment at his sentencing Aug. 3, Headley could be sentenced to 30 years in prison.

This, says Ayres cousin Kellie Lando, is not enough.

Not at all, she said.

Now, Lando and her family are petitioning the state government to sentence Headley to life in prison.

Headley was finishing five years of probation for endangering the welfare of a child when he stabbed Ayres to death in September 2010 after an argument in her car at a municipal soccer field in Southampton Township.

Ayres had been a high school softball star in her hometown of Deptford, and had continued her athletic career at Fordham University before transferring to Rugters-Camden. She also traveled the country playing for nationally-ranked softball teams in addition to coaching softball in Medford. Her father, Richard Ayres, was straightforward in his appraisal of her abilities.

She dominated, he said simply.

He felt the community had been robbed by his daughters death, and felt cheated by the possibility of such a lenient sentence, which his family considers a failure of the criminal justice system.

Its unbelievable. Its basically saying my daughters life is worth only 30 years, he said.

The family hopes that the petition, which has collected more than 3,000 signatures so far, will send a message advocating for tougher sentencing policies, even if it will not help Ayres.

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Family of Nicole Ayres working to get life sentence for killer