Abdul Mouzaffar's sister in Syria asked him to take good care of her eldest son, Jamal, who was visiting Pittsburgh to fix his prosthetic leg. So it "completely devastated" Mr. Mouzaffar to send him home "in a box," he said yesterday.

After a nonjury trial, Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey A. Manning convicted a Greensboro, N.C., teenager yesterday of the second-degree murder of Jamal Mouzaffar during an armed robbery last summer while Mr. Mouzaffar, 28, was tending his uncle Abdul's convenience store in Mount Oliver.

The judge said a surveillance video of the fatal robbery showed "an unbelievable amount of ferocity and a depraved indifference to the value of human life."

He also convicted Eric D. Hancock, 17, who admitted on the witness stand he'd robbed and killed the clerk, of robbery and two gun violations. The judge told the defendant he'd be confined to prison "for the remainder of your natural life," without parole. He ordered Mr. Hancock to serve concurrent time for the weapons offenses.

Mr. Hancock, who testified that he wished he "could take it all back," apologized to the Mouzaffar family prior to sentencing.

The teen said earlier that he was visiting relatives in Mount Oliver last summer when he came up with the plan to rob the nearby A&E Deli Food Mart on Brownsville Road. He testified that he and an older cousin, Jeremy Hancock, planned the robbery jointly, although the district attorney's office said it found no evidence to support that claim.

On the surveillance video of the Aug. 26 robbery, Jamal Mouzaffar is seen surrendering for about three minutes, as a masked and hooded assailant waves a gun at him and then shoots him in the chest. The robber then rifles through the register, searches for keys and climbs over the clerk's body to grab cigarettes.

The defendant said in court he pulled the trigger because "I just got scared and started to tense up." He indicated that he might have been flustered due to miscommunication about a safe.

He testified that he asked the clerk where "the safe" was, and the clerk said there was no safe.

He explained, under questioning, that he'd meant the small metal lottery box, which he located just before he pulled the trigger.

Mr. Mouzaffar died of a single gunshot wound to the chest.

The victim's uncle Abdul and aunt Marcy Mouzaffar said the homicide shattered their family. Ms. Mouzaffar said it especially pained her to have to violate Muslim law and embalm his body so they could send him home to Syria for burial.

Defense attorney Veronica Brestensky teared up when her client was sentenced.

She later said the homicide was "heart-wrenching" for the victim's and her client's families. The defendant's mother, who came from North Carolina for the trial, was too upset to speak, Ms. Brestensky said.

Mr. Hancock was 16 when "a split-second decision" ruined two lives, his lawyer said. She said he is intelligent and has made the high school honor roll consistently since he's been lodged at the Allegheny County Jail.

Mr. Hancock is the youngest of six children, three of whom are incarcerated, according to his lawyer.