MEMPHIS, July 5 (UPI) -- A Tennessee man was given life in federal prison Tuesday for the racially motivated slaying of a Shelby County code enforcement officer.
The U.S. Justice Department said Dale Mardis, 57, will have no possibility of parole for killing Mickey Wright April 17, 2001. Mardis pleaded guilty March 21.
Last week, federal authorities learned Mardis allegedly had killed another man, Henry Ackerman, in summer 1998. When confronted about it Friday, Mardis confessed, the Justice Department said in a release.
Mardis has agreed to plead guilty to a first-degree murder charge in Ackerman's death in Shelby County Criminal Court, and will be sentenced to life for that killing as well.
Details of the slayings were not provided by the department.
