Photo: WBZ NewsRadio
DEDHAM, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — A judge has sentenced Emanuel Lopes to two consecutive terms of life in prison for the murders of 42-year-old Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna and bystander Vera Adams.
Norfolk Superior Court Judge Beverly Cannone delivered the sentence Wednesday afternoon to a courtroom packed with family and friends of the victims as well as dozens of uniformed police officers.
This was the second trial after the first ended in a mistrial last summer.
Prosecutors say the killings happened on a summer day in July 2018 after Lopes received a call from a man previously involved with Lopes' girlfriend.
Lopes then went on a rampage that included taking his girlfriend's BMW and crashing into another vehicle by South Shore Hospital.
Witnesses were calling police saying Lopes was throwing rocks in a residential neighborhood.
Sgt. Chesna was one of the responding officers who ordered Lopes to drop a rock he was holding.
Instead, Lopes hit Chesna in the head with the rock knocking him down, then took the officer's service pistol shooting Chesna five times in the head and chest.
Another officer shot Lopes striking him in the leg.
During his attack, Lopes shot and killed 77-year-old Vera Adams as she sat on her porch nearby.
Lopes' defense called for a more lenient sentence claiming Lopes suffers from mental illness and has apologized for his actions.
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