A Massachusetts teen convicted of killing and beheading his fellow classmate was given two concurring lifetime prison sentences on Tuesday for the act.
Judge Helene Kazanjian sentenced Matthew Borges, 18, two-and-a-half years after Lee Manuel Villoria-Paulino, 16, was found near the Merrimack River in December 2016, decapitated and with missing hands.
“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, who called the sentence “appropriate,” per CNN.
Kazanjian’s statements followed testimony by the victim’s tearful mother, who pleaded that Borges “should never have the opportunity to kill again, to rob another person of their life.”
She added, “Every day we struggle with the fact that his life was cut too short. We drove ourselves crazy trying to make sense of what had been done.”
Borges’ attorney, Edward Hayden, argued that the 18-year-old should be able to receive the possibility of parole after serving 25 years.
“He is not irredeemably depraved. There is hope for his redemption. He can change his life,” Hayden said.
This plea was granted by Judge Kazanjian, providing Borges the possibility of parole after 30 years.
This sentence comes two months after a jury previously found Borges guilty of first-degree murder.
