The 30-year-old nursing student was honored with posthumous college degrees before her killer received a 50-years-to-life prison term.
MARTINEZ, Calif. — More than two years after Brittany Elizabeth Ligdis was killed in her Pinole home, a judge sentenced Jeffery Kendall to 50 years to life in prison, resolving the central criminal case while leaving another public record behind: the life Ligdis was building as a mother and nursing student.
The July 31, 2026, sentence followed Kendall’s conviction for first-degree murder and child endangerment in the Feb. 16, 2024, killing. Prosecutors said Ligdis, 30, had ended their relationship 10 days earlier. Kendall, now 39, was also found guilty in a separate bench trial of possessing an assault weapon. Judge Glenn Kim ordered two consecutive terms of 25 years to life and imposed a long restriction on Kendall’s contact with the couple’s son.
Long before the sentence, Ligdis’ friends had described the future she expected to have. She was studying at Diablo Valley College and pursuing nursing, a field friend Kassandra Santiago said suited her desire to help other people. Santiago told KTVU after the killing that Ligdis was passionate about nursing and supportive of fellow students. Family members similarly remembered her as a devoted mother whose daily life revolved around her children and education rather than the court case that later carried her name.
That work received formal recognition in May 2024, three months after her death. At Diablo Valley College’s graduation ceremony in Pleasant Hill, Ligdis was awarded degrees posthumously. Her family attended to accept them, and classmates publicly remembered the student who should have been there. The ceremony occurred while Kendall’s prosecution was still in its early stages, making it a milestone separate from the later verdict: a recognition of what Ligdis had completed, not only of what had been taken from her.
The circumstances of her death were nevertheless central to the prosecution. On the morning of Feb. 16, Ligdis called 911 after Kendall broke into her home, according to the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office. She told dispatchers she was hiding in a laundry room with the couple’s 4-year-old son. About 90 seconds into the call, Kendall entered the room. Ligdis told him to let go of her and said he was frightening the child before yelling for him to stop.
Prosecutors said Kendall then shot Ligdis in the head. Their son cried out for his mother and fled the room. Responding Pinole officers found Ligdis dead. The child was not reported physically injured, but family members later described the emotional impact. Ligdis’ aunt Nancy O’Neil told KTVU in 2024 that the boy repeatedly said his mother was dead. Relatives said he was staying with family members after the killing, and later public reports have appropriately offered few details about the minor’s private life.
The investigation quickly moved beyond the home. Earlier police accounts said surveillance video showed Kendall leaving the area, helping officers identify him as the suspect. Authorities circulated an alert for his Hyundai Elantra. California Highway Patrol officers later located the vehicle and arrested him after a traffic stop. The arrest began a prosecution that would last more than two years before a Contra Costa County jury reached its verdict on May 7, 2026.
Jurors found Kendall guilty of first-degree murder and child endangerment. The endangerment count reflected the danger created for the young son who was present during the killing. A separate weapons charge was heard by Kim after the defense successfully requested a bench trial on that issue. The judge found Kendall guilty of possessing an assault weapon, which prosecutors described as a 3D-printed pistol capable of semiautomatic fire, and found six aggravating factors related to the offense to be true.
At sentencing, Deputy District Attorney Tylyn Wells argued that the homicide should be understood in the context of the breakup and the child’s presence. She described it as an “execution in front of a 4-year-old child” and argued against treating the killing simply as a mental break. The district attorney’s office said Wells framed it as part of a familiar domestic-violence pattern in which threats can escalate after a partner decides to leave. The public sentencing summary did not provide a complete transcript of the defense presentation.
Kim called the matter one of the most difficult cases he had experienced, according to prosecutors. He imposed consecutive 25-years-to-life terms, bringing the total to 50 years to life. He also barred Kendall from contacting his son until November 2035, when the boy turns 16, except in limited circumstances approved by a court. The no-contact provision extends the consequences of the judgment beyond imprisonment and directly addresses the child who witnessed the killing.
Friends’ accounts from 2024 also provide context for the period before Ligdis died. Santiago said Ligdis had described Kendall as unpredictable after the breakup and said the situation was hard. Those statements are relevant because they reflect Ligdis’ concern at the time, but they should not be expanded into motives or events that the available sources do not establish. Prosecutors later supplied the confirmed timing that she had ended the relationship 10 days before the homicide.
The difference between those two kinds of records is important. The criminal case establishes what a jury and judge found beyond the allegations that opened the prosecution: murder, child endangerment and the assault-weapon offense. Friends and relatives, by contrast, supplied personal context about Ligdis, her studies and the effect of her death on her family. Both belong in the story, but they serve different purposes. One explains legal responsibility; the other helps prevent a victim’s life from being reduced to evidence.
Ligdis’ posthumous graduation is especially significant in that regard. A murder case is organized around the defendant, charges, evidence and sentence. A graduation ceremony is organized around work completed and a future anticipated. By the time Kendall stood for sentencing in 2026, Ligdis had already been publicly honored by the college community for academic progress that preceded the crime. That chronology makes the school ceremony part of the case’s aftermath without turning it into an extension of the prosecution. It also gives readers a concrete measure of the goals Ligdis had reached before the case came to define public coverage of her name.
The final sentence now fixes Kendall’s legal status, but it does not answer every question left by the killing. Public reporting does not disclose the child’s long-term recovery, and it does not provide a complete account of how Ligdis’ family has navigated the years since her death. Those absences should remain absences rather than be filled with assumptions. The verified record is enough to show a family coping with loss while a criminal case moved slowly from arrest to verdict to punishment.
Kendall remained in county jail after sentencing while awaiting transfer to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the district attorney’s office said. No later verified development reviewed for this report changes the 50-years-to-life term. The latest chapter belongs to the court, but the broader public record still includes Ligdis’ role as a mother, her work toward nursing and the degrees awarded in her name after she was gone.
Author note: Last updated September 9, 2026.