ALLENTOWN, PA \u2014 An eastern Pennsylvania woman who fatally stabbed her fiance on their wedding day \u2014 and then apparently could not comprehend that he had died \u2014 was convicted of first-degree murder on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Jurors found Na Cola Franklin,<\/strong> 32, guilty after deliberating about three hours in Lehigh County Court. She could get life in prison when she is sentenced July 16. Her attorney said an appeal is likely.<\/p>\n Prosecutors say Franklin<\/strong> and 36-year-old Billy Brewster<\/strong> got into the deadly argument on Aug. 11 around 2 a.m. in their Whitehall Township apartment. They were scheduled to be married at 10 a.m. in neighboring Allentown.<\/p>\n At her arraignment that night, Franklin<\/strong> appeared distraught and confused to learn Brewster<\/strong> was dead, telling the judge, \u201cYou got to check again!\u201d<\/p>\n Defense attorney John Waldron<\/strong> told jurors during the trial this week that Brewster<\/strong> had come home drunk that night after an impromptu bachelor party. Brewster<\/strong> attacked Franklin<\/strong> and then tried to leave with the couple\u2019s 9-month-old son, Waldron<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n Waldron<\/strong> argued Franklin<\/strong> killed the groom-to-be after grabbing a knife to protect her child. He had pushed for a voluntary manslaughter conviction, which carries a lighter sentence.<\/p>\n But prosecutors, who said the child was not in danger, sought a first-degree murder conviction. First Assistant District Attorney Steven Luksa<\/strong> said Thursday that he hopes the verdict will bring some comfort to Brewster\u2019s<\/strong> family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ALLENTOWN, PA \u2014 An eastern Pennsylvania woman who fatally stabbed her fiance on their wedding day \u2014 and then apparently could not comprehend that he had died \u2014 was convicted of first-degree murder on Thursday. Jurors found Na Cola Franklin, 32, guilty after deliberating about three hours in Lehigh County Court. She could get life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}