US teenager sentenced to life in prison for beheading classmate
A teenager in the United States has been handed two life sentences for beheading his classmate almost three years ago.
Matthew Borges, 18, was found guilty by a jury of first-degree murder following the death of then-16-year-old Lee Manuel Villoria-Paulino.
A statement from the Essex District Attorney's Office said the victim's mother, Katiuska Paulino urged the court to impose the maximum sentence.
She said:
There are no more dreams for the dreamer, the brother, the writer and the poet that was Lee Manuel Viloria-Paulino… He has been the soul of this family since he was born. We are the living dead after he was brutally ripped from our side.
District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said: "This vicious murder claimed more than just Lee Paulino’s life. Its brutality was shocking to the community and tore at our sense of decency and humanity. Most of all, it has devastated all those who loved Lee.
"His family will never celebrate his graduation or his birthday. They will never know what he would have become. It is a loss that simply cannot be measured. Understanding that there is no number of years that can restore this family’s loss, it is my hope that they can now find some peace.”
USA Today reports that prosecutors said Borges was jealous of the time Paulino spent with a girl at their school, and Borges stabbed Paulino to death before cutting his head and hands off to try and conceal his identity.
Borges was 15-years-old at the time of the murder.
CNN reported that Judge Helene Kazanjian said there was no sentence she could impose that would bring back Mr Paulino or answer questions about "how a 15-year-old could kill a friend in this manner".
