Conviction in Soho House Murder

The playboy boyfriend of a fashion designer was convicted last Thursday of strangling and drowning her in the bathtub of a swank hotel room after a tumultuous six-month relationship.

Nicholas Brooks, whose father was an Oscar-winning composer who wrote "You Light Up My Life," put his face in his hands silently as the murder verdict was read. His girlfriend, Sylvie Cachay, was found partially clothed in an overflowing tub on Dec. 9, 2010.

"Today justice was done, but the pain is immense, and it will never go away," Cachay's mother, Sylvia Cachay, said in Spanish. "But she had a precious spirit, and that will live on. She's with me always. She was with me in the courtroom, and she is with me now."

Brooks, 27, faces a possible sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Hoffman argued Cachay drowned accidentally, passing out from an overdose of prescription pills she took to treat migraines and fibromyalgia, a disorder that causes widespread pain in the body. He said investigators rushed to arrest Brooks because they needed a suspect in the high-profile killing.

Prosecutors sought to show that Brooks strangled Cachay because she was breaking up with him. The medical examiner ruled that forcible drowning and strangulation caused her death, in part because of bruising on her neck and burst blood vessels in and around her eyes.

Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann said there was obvious tenderness between Brooks and Cachay but their relationship was made up of extreme highs and lows - and Brooks killed her in a low.