A jury that convicted the younger of two Oklahoma brothers in the fatal stabbings of their parents and three siblings recommended Friday that he should go to prison for life, but with a chance of being paroled.
The jury recommended the sentence for 19-year-old Michael Bever two days after it convicted him of five first-degree murder counts and one count of assault and battery with intent to kill for his role in the 2015 stabbings.
On Thursday, the jury recommended he serve 28 years in prison for the assault on a sibling who survived the attack.
Bever was 16 when authorities say he and brother Robert Bever killed their family members. Robert Bever, who was 18 at the time, pleaded guilty in 2016 and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Michael Bever did not testify in his own defense, and his attorneys relied heavily on the testimony of Robert Bever, who told his brother's jury that he wanted to take responsibility for all of the killings.
Defense attorneys argued that the younger brother was led astray by the older brother.
But prosecutors said Michael Bever should be locked up for life because he was a willing participant in the gruesome killings of his family as well as the attack on a sister, now 16, who survived.
In a videotaped interview that jurors saw, Michael Bever told detectives that he stabbed his 10-year-old brother and his mother.