An Alabama appeals court has upheld the murder conviction and life sentence of a 19-year-old man accused of fatally beating a man with a baseball bat.

AL.com reports the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the 2017 conviction and sentencing of Eric Matthew Blackerby on Wednesday. Blackerby, of Alabaster, was convicted last August of beating 19-year-old William Allen Neff with an aluminum baseball bat in 2015.

Trial evidence said Blackerby’s older brother had gotten into a fight with Neff over a girl. Evidence said Blackerby, who was 16 years old at the time, then struck Neff with the bat. Neff later died.

Blackerby said at the trial that he hit Neff at least twice with the bat, and a coroner’s report says one of those strikes was fatal.
(Associated Press, copyright 2018)

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