Two Americans from California were sentenced to life in prison by a jury in Rome on officer.
Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, were found guilty of charges of homicide, attempted extortion, assault, resisting a public official and carrying an attack-style knife without just cause in connection to the death of Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega, according to the Associated Press.
The jury deliberated for over 12 hours, the outlet reported.
In 2019, the then teens were visiting Rome when Elder stabbed the officer 11 times in a drug bust gone wrong and Natale-Hjorth helped hide the murder weapon in their hotel room, the AP reports.
In Italy, an accomplice to an alleged murder can be charged with murder even if they didn’t physically participate in the death.
Cerciello Rega had just gotten back into Rome from his honeymoon when he was put on a case to investigate Elder and Natale-Hjorth in a drug bust, AP reported.
His widow Rosa Maria Esilio was in court as the verdict was read and she cried while holding onto a photo of the slain officer.
According to AP, she told reporters outside of the courtroom, “His integrity was defended. He was everyone’s son, everyone’s Carabinieri. He was a marvelous husband; he was a marvelous man, a servant of the state who merited respect and honor.”
Elder’s father Ethan Elder, told his son, “Finnegan, I love you” as he was escorted from the courtroom, per AP.
Elder’s attorney, Renato Borzone, told reporters the verdict is “a disgrace for Italy” and Natale-Hjorth’s lawyer, Fabio Alonzi, remarked that he was speechless, AP reported.
Borzone and Alonzi did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request to comment.
Elder and Natale-Hjorth were 19 and 18, respectfully, when the crime took place on July 26, 2019.
The incident occurred after the two schoolmates made a failed attempt to buy cocaine for $100, but were sold a fake substance. In retaliation, they stole the backpack and cellphone of the middle man in order to exchange it for the drugs they paid for, a Carabinieri press statement obtained by ABC News reported.
The backpack owner then contacted police who pretended to be the backpack’s owners in order to make contact with Elder and Natale-Hjorth, according to the outlet.
Officer Cerciello Rega and Officer Andrea Varriale met the two Americans in plainclothes, before identifying themselves as police, Carabinieri said in the press statement obtained by ABC News.
However, during the trial which began in Feb. 2020, Elder and Natale-Hjorth claimed Cerciello Rega and Varriale didn’t show their police badges and they thought they were mobsters leading up to the stabbing, AP reported.
