looks like college really paid off for this guy 
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -Former Fresno State basketball player Terry Pettis was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without parole for murdering a teenage woman in a botched drug robbery.
The sentence was handed down in Fresno County Superior Court after a series of emotional speeches by Pettis, his father and the family of the victim, 18-year-old Rene Shannon Abbott.
Pettis, 21, was convicted May 26 of first-degree murder and armed robbery.
According to court testimony, Abbott, a Fresno City College student, sat in the driver's seat of her car as her boyfriend, Kent Wolf, and Michael Tunnell negotiated the sale of an ounce of marijuana.
Witnesses including Wolf and Tunnell said Pettis shoved a handgun through the open driver's window and demanded the drugs. Wolf told Abbott to drive away. As the car jerked backward, a bullet was fired through Abbott's head, and became lodged in Wolf's thigh.
Police arrived to find Abbott fatally wounded. Wolf has recovered from his injuries.
Pettis' attorney Michael Castro claimed the case was one of mistaken identity and that Pettis didn't pull the trigger.
Prosecutor Jon Skiles had told jurors that witnesses placed Pettis on the scene of the crime that day, and that legally it was irrelevant whether he had meant to fire the gun.
The sentence was handed down in Fresno County Superior Court after a series of emotional speeches by Pettis, his father and the family of the victim, 18-year-old Rene Shannon Abbott.
Pettis, 21, was convicted May 26 of first-degree murder and armed robbery.
According to court testimony, Abbott, a Fresno City College student, sat in the driver's seat of her car as her boyfriend, Kent Wolf, and Michael Tunnell negotiated the sale of an ounce of marijuana.
Witnesses including Wolf and Tunnell said Pettis shoved a handgun through the open driver's window and demanded the drugs. Wolf told Abbott to drive away. As the car jerked backward, a bullet was fired through Abbott's head, and became lodged in Wolf's thigh.
Police arrived to find Abbott fatally wounded. Wolf has recovered from his injuries.
Pettis' attorney Michael Castro claimed the case was one of mistaken identity and that Pettis didn't pull the trigger.
Prosecutor Jon Skiles had told jurors that witnesses placed Pettis on the scene of the crime that day, and that legally it was irrelevant whether he had meant to fire the gun.
