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Jury continues deliberations in murder trial of Colorado man

The Associated Press

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. ” The jury in the first-degree murder trial of a Harvard graduate student has four choices: acquit or convict Alexander Pring-Wilson, or find him guilty on lesser charges of either second-degree murder or manslaughter.

The jury was to resume deliberations Tuesday after taking the Columbus Day holiday weekend off.

Pring-Wilson, 26, is charged in the April 2003 killing of Michael Colono outside of a Cambridge pizzeria.



The jury has deliberated about seven hours over two days already, trying to sort through conflicting versions of the events that left Colono, 18, dead of stab wounds.

Pring-Wilson said he stabbed Colono in self-defense as Colono and his cousin, Samuel Rodriguez, beat him relentlessly over the head.



Rodriguez testified that Pring-Wilson was the aggressor, initiating the fight after Colono made fun of him as he stumbled drunkenly down a Cambridge street.

Colono was stabbed five times and died hours later at a Boston hospital.

Pring-Wilson is a 2000 honors graduate of Colorado College, and a native of Colorado Springs, Colo. He was studying for his master’s degree at Harvard when the killing occurred. He has since taken a leave of absence from school.

He’s also the son of two prominent Colorado attorneys. Mother Cynthia Pring worked as a deputy district attorney in Colorado Springs in the 1970s before entering private practice. His father, Ross Wilson, is a criminal defense lawyer.

Pring-Wilson would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of first-degree murder.

A second-degree murder conviction would also carry a mandatory life sentence, but Pring-Wilson would be eligible for parole after 15 years. Manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Massachusetts does not have a death penalty.


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