Ex-Marine receives 2 life prison terms

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- An ex-Marine was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for the December 2002 slayings of his girlfriend and her 2-month-old baby.
The same jury that found former Marine Sgt. James Coleman III guilty of the killings deliberated about an hour before recommending that he be spared the death penalty. The judge then sentenced him to two life prison terms.
Coleman, 25, of East Cleveland, Ohio, was convicted Monday of second-degree murder for strangling 19-year-old Jessica Hine. The jury found him guilty of first-degree murder for then suffocating her 2-month-old son, Devonte, whose body he stowed in the freezer of their Tampa apartment.
Prosecutors say Coleman strangled Hine during a violent argument and later stuffed her body in a suitcase and dumped it in Volusia County. He told police he suffocated the baby about two weeks later to end the sick child's suffering.
Prosecutors had sought first-degree murder convictions in both slayings. They say Coleman killed Hine because she threatened to call police. He had been charged previously with battering her and did not want to go back to jail.
Coleman, who was stationed at U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base, was not Devonte's father but had agreed to raise the child as his own. He and Hine met on the Internet in late 2001.