A teenager convicted of decapitating his classmate over a romantic dispute was sentenced to life in prison.
Matthew Borges, 18, from Lawrence, Massachusetts will spend the rest of his life in jail, the maximum allowable sentence given by Superior Court Judge Helene Kazanjian Tuesday, the New York Post reported.
Borges was convicted in May for the November 2016 first-degree murder of 16-year-old Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino, a classmate whom Borges thought had slept with his girlfriend, according to the New York Post.
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Vilora-Paulino’s decapitated remains were found along the banks of the Merrimack river, having last been seen walking with Borges in a surveillance video. Borges was arrested two days later and was held without bail in connection to the death, which prosecutors described as “horrific, horrific,” the New York Post reported.
“The defendant told them he stabbed him to death and cut his head and hands off so he couldn’t be identified,” Assistant District Attorney Jay Gubitose said at trial, according to the Boston Herald.
Gubitose also told the jury about texts sent by Borges, “I think of killing someone and I smirk…It’s all I think about every day.”
Borges was charged with first-degree murder and pleaded not guilty. On May 14, a jury found him guilty of killing Viloria-Paulino “with deliberate premeditation and extreme atrocity and cruelty,” the Herald reported. (RELATED: Details Of Whitey Bulger’s Murder Will Make Your Stomach Churn)
“There is no sentence I can impose that will bring back Lee Paulino, or that will answer the questions that we all have about how this happened, and how a 15-year-old boy could kill a friend in this manner,” Kazanjian said after handing down the life sentence, which she called “appropriate,” according to WTKR.
Borges will be eligible for parole in 30 years because he committed the crime as a juvenile.
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