There was no one in the courtroom on Thursday to speak on behalf of the four men Randy Santos bludgeoned to death with a metal bar as they slept on the New York City streets.

No anguished friends or relatives to tell the judge about Florencio Moran, Nazario Vasquez Villegas, Anthony Manson and Chuen Kok’s abruptly shortened lives. No one to confront Santos face-to-face about his psychosis-fuelled rampage through Manhattan’s Chinatown neighbourhood nearly seven years ago, or to hear him apologise.

No one to see him sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.

“There are no victim impact statements here today. There’s nobody here to tell this court about their lives and how their absence is a loss,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Alfred Peterson told Judge Laura A. Ward.

“But I’m certain this court and this city understands the value of every life, and the gift of life that we’re afforded to live and make choices and have free will,” Peterson said, haltingly and emotionally at times. “That gift was taken away by Randy Santos.”

Santos, convicted in February of first-degree murder, sat solemnly between his court-appointed lawyers, listening through headphones as a Spanish interpreter translated the proceeding. A Chinatown activist who arranged the funeral for Kok, an immigrant originally from Hong Kong, watched quietly from the courtroom gallery, a few feet from Santos’ family.