After less than three hours of deliberations, the jury returned with a guilty verdict Friday against a former youth pastor accused of killing and dismembering a 16-year-old boy in 1994.
In an unusual move, Ronnie Hyde told Judge Tatiana Salvador he was ready to be sentenced immediately as Fred Laster’s five siblings watched from the front row. They had left a seat open for their slain brother.
After a tear-filled statement from Laster’s brother, Travis, who recounted all that “Freddy’s” family was deprived of by his murder, Salvador handed down the mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.
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