Man convicted of killing student, staging suicide

PHILADELPHIA >> A suburban Philadelphia man accused of fatally shooting his girlfriend and staging her death as a suicide has been sentenced to life in prison after a jury convicted him of murder.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports a jury convicted 30-year-old Brandon Meade of Upper Darby of first-degree murder and possessing an instrument of crime on Tuesday in the slaying of 22-year-old Temple University student Agatha Hall.

Hall, a Ghanaian immigrant, was found dead in her Philadelphia apartment last summer with a gunshot wound to the head.

Prosecutors have said Meade shot Hall and then staged the scene in her bedroom to resemble a suicide.

Investigators have said tests concluded Hall’s gunshot wound couldn’t have been self-inflicted.

Meade declined to comment before his sentencing.