Ex-Tam High Classmates Convicted In Italian Cop Killing: Report

ROME – Two former Tamalpais High School classmates were convicted of murder and four other counts in an Italian courtroom Wednesday night for the 2019 slaying of a cop, The Associated Press reports.

Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, were vacationing in Italy at the time when a drug deal that went awry precipitated the stabbing of an unarmed 35-year-old plainclothes police officer according to the report.

Elder was accused of stabbing Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega 11 times and Natale-Hjorth of helping him conceal a knife Elder brought with him on his European vacation on July 26, 2019, the report said.

Accomplices in murder cases can face murder charges without material involvement in the killing under Italian law.

Elder in testimony earlier this year told the court he believed the officer was a go-between he had sought to retrieve money from after hours earlier paying for cocaine he did not receive according to the report.

Elder said he was confronted by two men he didn't recognize who he believed were thugs that turned out to be undercover officers.

He said one of the men tackled him to the ground according to the report.

"I could feel his hands first on my chest and then on my neck, with pressure, as if he was trying to strangle or choke me," Elder said according to the report.

Elder testified that the officers failed to identify themselves as Carabinieri – a claim that was disputed by Cerciello Rega’s partner, Andrea Varriale, the report said.

The two officers had been summoned to respond to an extortion attempt according to the report.

The incident wasn't Elder's first brush with the law.

He arrived at the Mill Valley high school as a transfer from Sacred Heart Cathedral of San Francisco with a troubled past according to published reports.

In 2016 Elder was accused of sucker-punching a former high school football teammate during a 2016 party at Stern Grove, an altercation that left his 16-year-old victim in a coma for a week according to an ABC 7 report that cites police records.

Elder was arrested but his assault charge was dismissed after a year because he was a juvenile at the time according to the report.

Read more in The Associated Press