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Killer gets 25 years for murder By Chris Bristol A man who beat and stomped another man in a Phoenix orchard and left him there to die was sentenced Tuesday to 25 years in prison for murder. Michael Edwin Terry, 30, hung his head as the sentence was handed down by trial judge Patricia Crain. Under the mandatory terms of Measure 11, Terry is not eligible for parole and must serve the entire sentence. Crain told Terry that even though he is going to be locked up for years to come, he needs to continue counseling for his obvious anger problem. "It�s clear your behavior stems from an inconceivable kind of anger," she said, "something most of us can�t comprehend." A Jackson County jury convicted Terry of murder last week for attacking Kevin Elkin in an orchard off Coleman Creek Road on the night of Halloween 1999 and leaving him there to die from his injuries. Terry testified that while he was angry because he believed his girlfriend had been raped by Elkin, he didn�t mean to kill him. His defense team asked the jury to consider a lesser conviction for manslaughter. But prosecutors discounted Terry�s story, based largely on the severity of the victim�s injuries. A coroner testified that Elkin, 39, suffered four different potentially fatal injuries in the attack and was probably stomped on the throat while unconscious. Prosecutors also discounted both the veracity of the rape allegation and whether Terry really believed it. His own defense attorney said the girlfriend likely made up the story in case Terry found out she had cheated on him while he was in jail. In a brief but emotional statement to the court, Elkin�s mother, Mary Elkin, spoke of the special bond that mothers have with their children and said she missed her son because he was her closest confidant. "Who am I going to talk to now?" she cried, turning to face her son�s killer. "Who am I going to talk to now, Michael Terry?" The victim�s sister-in-law, Danna Elkin, said the murder robbed her husband, Phoenix police officer Chris Elkin, of his only sibling at a time when the brothers were finally putting their boyhood battles and lingering differences to rest. She also said her brother-in-law�s violent death stole her family�s innocence. The victim was the father of a 9-year-old boy. "We don�t laugh the way we once did," she said. "And we don�t trust anyone." Terry declined to make a statement. He glanced over at members of his family once or twice, but otherwise stared down at the defense table throughout the proceeding. Before trial, he pleaded guilty to domestic assault charges for beating his girlfriend when she told him she had been raped. He also admitted to stealing Elkin�s car after the attack. Those pleas did not affect his sentence for the murder, which includes lifetime parole supervision once he is released from prison in 2024. The 25-year sentence includes the year he spent in jail awaiting trial. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.