A North Carolina man will spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to charges of murdering a newlywed Muslim couple and the bride's sister.
Craig Hicks was sentenced to three consecutive life terms, and an additional 64 to 89 months on charges of firing a weapon indoors.
Prosecutors declined to pursue the death penalty, saying they wanted to conclude the case because it had been lingering before the court for two years.
A North Carolina man will spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to charges of murdering a newlywed Muslim couple and the bride's sister.
Craig Hicks was sentenced to three consecutive life terms, and an additional 64 to 89 months on charges of firing a weapon indoors.
Prosecutors declined to pursue the death penalty, saying they wanted to conclude the case because it had been lingering before the court for two years.
The victims' family wanted to pursue federal hate crimes charges against Hicks, but investigators say there was not enough evidence.
Hicks burst into an apartment and killed University of North Carolina dental student Deah Barakat, his new wife Yusor Abu-Salha, and her sister Razan Abu-Salha in February, 2015.
Hicks said he was provoked and infuriated because he believed the three were taking up too many parking spaces at an apartment building.
Prosecutors say the three did not park in Hicks' space, and they say he targeted them because they were Muslim.
Prosecutors played cell phone video of the shooting in the courtroom Wednesday, eliciting cries and curses from the victims' family.
Then President Barack Obama spoke out about the killings in 2015, calling them "brutal and outrageous."
"No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship," Obama said.
