RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Two brothers pleaded guilty on Tuesday to murder-related counts for the shooting death of a North Carolina sheriff’s deputy three years ago when authorities said the officer approached a pickup truck late at night in a rural area.

Alder Marin-Sotelo, 28, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Wake County court in the killing of 48-year-old Deputy Ned Byrd, a K-9 officer. The man’s brother, Arturo Marin-Sotelo, 32, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to first-degree murder.

Superior Court Judge Graham Shirley sentenced Alder Marin-Sotelo to life in prison without the chance for parole and Arturo Marin-Sotelo to a prison sentence of between roughly eight to 10 years.

Both of them had previously been charged with murder and had otherwise been scheduled to go to trial in September 2026. Byrd’s co-workers, family and friends filled the courtroom to see the plea agreements carried out.

“We know that you can tell from the outpouring of love and support from the sheriff’s office — all of them who were present here today — that this has been a great loss for our community and for that agency,” Freeman told the judge.

Freeman said evidence would have been presented at trial that showed Byrd was traveling the night of Aug, 11, 2022, in his patrol vehicle en route to a law enforcement training center for his dog when he noticed a pickup truck beside a fence on the side of a dark road. Byrd pulled over and moved his vehicle up to the truck.

A recording from his in-car camera showed that Byrd got out of the vehicle, and mere seconds later six gunshots could be heard, followed later by the pickup leaving the scene, Freeman said. An autopsy determined that the officer was shot four times, three in the back of the head, the prosecutor said in court. The brothers, who were from Mexico, ultimately were located in separate vehicles in western North Carolina days after the shootings.

Legal proceedings had been delayed largely because in April 2023, Alder Marin-Sotelo escaped from a Virginia jail where he was being held after pleading guilty months earlier to a federal charge of firearm possession by someone in the country unlawfully.

The FBI said Alder Marin-Sotelo was taken into custody a few days later in Mexico. He was held there until February 2025, when Mexico agreed to send to the U.S. nearly 30 prisoners requested by the federal government.

First-degree murder can be punished by the death penalty in North Carolina. Freeman said Tuesday that getting Alder Marin-Sotelo back to North Carolina required prosecutors to take capital punishment off the table. Otherwise, she said, “if there was ever a capital case, this is the type of case that certainly would have been.”

Mignon Perkins, Byrd’s sister, told the court before sentencing that her brother “was one of the most amazing people you have ever known.” Byrd joined the sheriff’s office in 2009.

“You have stolen my happiness. You have stolen my joy,” Perkins told the defendants. “I’m a godly woman, but I will never forgive you for taking my brother from me.”

Through an interpreter, Arturo Marin-Sotelo said he was sorry for what happened and still asked for the sister’s forgiveness because, he said, he could do nothing else.

Freeman said Alder Marin-Sotelo’s cellphone placed him at the crime scene during the shooting. She said evidence backed up Arturo Marin-Sotelo’s statement to police that the brothers had driven to a Wake County field to hunt for deer.

After Tuesday’s hearing, Freeman confirmed Arturo Marin-Sotelo told investigators that he walked through the woods with a rifle while his brother parked the truck. Arturo Marin-Sotelo then said that on the phone his brother “made statements that an officer had been killed” and that the brother traveled to the other side of the field to pick him up, Freeman said.

Freeman said cartridge casings at the crime scene and in the pickup truck were fired from the same unknown gun, and that a DNA sample from the younger brother matched a DNA profile collected from Byrd’s police-issued gun. The weapon was in Byrd’s holster when he was found, with the belt twisted around his body. It appeared that Alder Marin-Sotelo had tried to remove Byrd’s gun before giving up, according to Freeman.