Woman Came to D.C. for a Concert. She Was Stabbed 34 Times in Hotel Room, and Killer Who Smoked Cigarette Learns Fate

A man who randomly stabbed a Virginia woman to death inside her hotel room after she traveled to Washington, D.C., for a concert has been sentenced to 40 years in prison, prosecutors said.

George Sydnor, 46, received the sentence on Friday, Jan. 16, after pleading guilty in October 2025 to one count of first-degree murder while armed, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release. He will serve 40 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release.

Prosecutors said Sydnor killed 31-year-old Christy Bautista shortly after she checked into a ground-level room at the Ivy City Hotel in Northeast D.C. on the evening of March 31, 2023. Bautista, from Harrisonburg, Va., was in town to attend a concert.

After checking in, Bautista brought her belongings in from her car. About an hour and a half later, surveillance footage showed Sydnor arriving at the hotel on a rideshare bike and heading toward a row of street-accessible ground-floor rooms near Bautista’s room, according to the release.

“Sydnor parked his bike in front of Ms. Bautista’s window and then stood at her door as if listening in before abruptly entering her room slamming the door behind him,” the release states. “Once inside, the defendant attacked Ms. Bautista, stabbing her multiple times, killing her.”

Prosecutors said surveillance footage captured several “loud thud noises” immediately after Sydnor entered the room, and a witness reported hearing a woman screaming for help.

Bautista was stabbed 34 times in the neck and back, according to reporting by WUSA 9. Officers arrived within minutes and found Sydnor sitting on the bed smoking a cigarette, with blood on his hands, while Bautista’s body was on the floor, the outlet reported.

At the time of the killing, Sydnor was on release in an earlier attempted robbery case, prosecutors said.

In court, prosecutors described the killing as “sadistic,” while Bautista’s loved ones spoke about the loss, WTOP reported.

“Just the randomness of it all is, I don’t know, it’s hard to digest, because things could have been prevented,” her sister, Emily Bautista, said, according to the outlet. “She was aware. She moved her car right out in front of her hotel room. She had all the right precautions, and she still was killed randomly.”

Another sister, Ashley Bautista, added, “I feel a humongous hole in our heart…never being able to talk to her again, to love her and to hug her. I miss her so much,” WTOP reported.

Sydnor, who sat in a wheelchair, also briefly apologized in court, saying he “never intended for none of this to happen and I’m terribly sorry,” WUSA9 reported. His attorneys asked for a shorter 35-year sentence, citing his remorse and declining health, according to the outlet.

Bautista was remembered in a GoFundMe campaign created after her death as someone who “made an impact on everyone’s lives that she encountered.”

“She was a shining light that lifted up everyone’s spirits around her,” the fundraiser says. “She encouraged people to do things they were afraid of and cheered them on.”