NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- A man who killed a mother of three in 1994 because she filed a complaint against a corrupt New Orleans police officer was sentenced to life with no parole.
Paul Hardy, now 44, appeared in shackles in a prison uniform during a hearing Wednesday in federal court, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported.
Hardy was originally sentenced to death for the murder of Kim Groves but won an appeal on the grounds he is retarded. The police officer, Len Davis, is in a federal prison in Indiana and appealing his death sentence for arranging the killing after Groves made a brutality complaint.
Groves, 32, was shot in the head outside her home in the ninth ward in 1994. Two of her three children addressed the court.
"I remember like yesterday the hole you left in my mother's head," Jasmine Groves told Hardy. "Did you ever think of the pain and hurt you would cause her family, or that she was someone's mother? Did you even care?"
Corey Groves talked about how losing his mother when he was 16 sent his life into a spiral of drug abuse and depression.
Davis was arrested after an FBI sting operation. He and other police officers ran a protection racket for drug dealers.
