Vivett gets maximum sentence

The man convicted of carjacking, robbing, raping and shooting a College of General Studies student in October 1993 was given the maximum sentence possible Tuesday in Common Pleas Court. Keith Vivett, 30, was found guilty of aggravated indecent assault, kidnapping, a weapons offense and two counts of robbery by a jury in June. He will serve between 37 1/2 and 75 years in prison. Common Pleas Court Judge Arnold New characterized Vivett's crime as "one of the most cold-blooded robberies and shooting" he had ever seen. "I feel he is a danger to society, and for the safety of the public I feel he has to be sentenced" to the maximum term the law mandates, New said, referring to Vivett's lengthy criminal record. The 26-year-old victim was walking to her car in the public parking lot at 34th and Chestnut streets on October 20, 1993 at 9:50 p.m. when Vivett kidnapped her. Vivett forced the student into the backseat of her car at gunpoint and robbed her of $7. He drove her to North Philadelphia, and forced her to remove her clothing in the car. He then sexually molested her. After driving around for 20 minutes, Vivett stopped the car and molested the student again. He then gagged her with her bra and forced the nude student into a house, where he shot her in the face and left her for dead. The student then played dead, waiting for Vivett to leave, she testified. After Vivett left the house, the woman, naked and bleeding, went onto Girard Avenue and yelled for help. And after several pleas for help were ignored by passing motorists, Eric Drayton, a gas station cashier who was walking to his job, stopped to help her and called police. Drayton was recently honored by the City of Philadelphia for his help to the victim. Vivett was caught two weeks after the attack in the student's car, after a one-hour high speed chase with New Jersey State police. According to Assistant District Attorney Curtis Douglas, Vivett was no stranger to crime. He has a prior criminal record which includes a robbery and burglary conviction along with a 1981 conviction for a sexual assault on a nine-year-old. Douglas added that Vivett served 12 years in prison for involuntary sexual intercourse and was released from prison nine months before he raped and shot the student. The Philadelphia Inquirer contributed to this story.

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