OKINAWA, Japan, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- A U.S. airman in Japan was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for killing a fellow serviceman, officials said.
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Nicholas Cron, 26, of the 733rd Air Mobility Squadron in Okinawa, avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, premeditated murder and obstruction of justice in the 2011 stabbing death of Tech. Sgt. Curtis Eccleston. The plot allegedly involved the victim's wife, Stars and Stripes reported.
Prosecutors, who portrayed Cron as unrepentant and calculating, had asked the judge to deny the defendant any chance at parole, the newspaper said.
Eccleston's wife, Barbara Keiko Eccleston, 32, a Brazilian national, is accused of having an affair with Cron and prosecutors said the two plotted the killing for months. Barbara Eccleston testified in Cron's trial that she had discussed the plot with Cron but had not actually wanted her husband dead.
She will be tried for murder in a Japanese court, Stars and Stripes said.
