A North Carolina man charged with killing three Muslim college students in 2015 will not face the death penalty.
District Attorney Satana DeBerry said she plans to proceed with a potential life prison sentence to speed up the first-degree murder case against Craig Hicks, 50.
He is accused of killing University of North Carolina dental student Deah Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, 21 and her sister Razan Abu-Salha, 19, inside their condo.
Craig Hicks, (pictured) is accused of murdering three Muslim students who lived beside him
Deah Barakat, 23, (left), his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, (center), and her sister Razan Abu-Salha, 19, (right), were murdered in an apparent dispute over a parking space in February 2015
Police said in 2015 that Hicks was angered by a dispute over a parking space in their shared complex.
Hicks was expected to face a possible death penalty if convicted, but DeBerry said she plans to proceed with a 'noncapital case' to speed up the four-year-long process.
Hicks is being prosecuted by the Durham County District Attorney's Office as the killings took place in a part of Chapel Hill that is in Durham County.
The case has not been heard, despite the crimes being committed more than four years ago.
DeBerry claimed she met with the victims’ families and they 'have suffered not just the tragic death of three bright, beloved children but the continued delay of the prosecution of their case.'
'The longer we delay the trial of Mr. Hicks, the longer we bring additional suffering to the Barakat and Abu-Salha families,' DeBerry said in a statement.
'To insure we are able to bring this case to trial as quickly as possible and help begin the process of healing for the families, I have decided to try this as a noncapital case.'
Barakat, an North Carolina State University graduate, was in his second year at the UNC School of Dentistry.
Craig Hicks pictured at a hearing after being charged with murder in Durham in April 2016
Hicks is accused of barging into the apartment of the victims and shooting them dead
His wife, also an NCSU graduate, was planning to join her husband at the School of Dentistry in the fall. Her sister Razan was an architecture student at NCSU’s School of Design.
Hicks was an unemployed community college student who lived in a neighboring apartment. He later
