The Ngoc Tran of Lowell guilty in mallet-beating murder of wife

LOWELL, Mass. (AP) - A Lowell man has been found guilty of beating his wife to death with a rubber mallet.

After a weeklong trial, a Lowell Superior Court jury on Tuesday found The Ngoc Tran guilty of first degree murder in the April 2011 death of Son Ngoc Tran.

A judge sentenced the 63-year-old man to the mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Authorities say Tran was controlling and abusive toward his wife of 30 years and had just learned she planned to leave him.

Officials say on April 28, 2011 he beat her repeatedly with a rubber mallet in their Lowell home. At one point, they say, he stuffed toilet paper in his wife's mouth to stifle her screams as he beat her.