Oceanside

A Superior Court judge on Wednesday sentenced the triggerman in the Troiani murder-for-hire case to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Judge Gilbert Nares ruled that Mark James Schulz, 22, should spend the rest of his life behind bars despite a request for leniency from the young man’s attorney and parents.

In a plea bargain with prosecutors Nov. 4, Schulz admitted that he gunned down Marine Staff Sgt. Carlo Troiani in 1984 along a lonely stretch of road in Oceanside. Troiani’s wife, Laura, has been convicted of hiring Schulz and four other Marines to kill her husband for a fee of $500 each that was to be drawn from insurance money she planned to collect.

Schulz and his defense attorney, Dan Cronin, agreed to the plea bargain in an effort to avoid a jury trial, in which he could have been found guilty and sentenced to death.

Cronin spent the bulk of the hearing Wednesday attempting to convince Nares that his client should not receive a life sentence. The young man’s parents, Wilma and Frederick Schulz of Stevens Point, Wis., also testified on his behalf. In addition, Schulz dispatched a letter to Nares on Nov. 16 asking for leniency.

But the judge remained unconvinced. “Your background is in some respects sad, in other respects normal,” Nares told Schulz during the hearing. “You’ve had difficulties in handling life. On the other hand, you executed a human being. Carlo Troiani did nothing wrong and you killed him.”