KENT, Wash. -- A Burien man convicted of killing three men who were found shot to death in an SUV was sentenced Friday to 97 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Tony Smith killed the men to steal cash they had hidden in the vehicle.

Smith, a drug dealer who went by the nickname "Pit Bull," confessed to shooting the three passengers while driving south on Interstate 5 in the Centralia area, prosecutors said in court documents. He returned to Kent and tore apart the interior of the SUV to find more than $30,000 in drug money.

The bodies of Francisco Santos-Rojas, 24, and Edgar Ulises Santos, 16, both of Maple Valley, and Ruben Ojeda Fuentes, 24, from Mexico, were found January 3, 2003 in an SUV on the shoulder of the West Valley Highway. Each of the three died of a single gunshot wound.

He was arrested days later at his apartment where investigators found two handguns and recovered two pit bull dogs, along with marijuana and more than $1,600 in cash. The dogs belonged to one of the victims.

In King County Superior Court on Friday, Margarita Santos-Rojas said she'd been waiting many years for closure in the case.

"Even though Tony is going to go to jail and he's going to pay for what he did, I'll never get my brother back. I'll never get my nephew back, and I'll never see my cousin again," she said.

Smith smoke briefly before he was sentenced to prison.

"You guys can hate me if you want to," he said while facing the victims' families. "It won't change anything. I don't ask you to forgive me. "