A Sacramento, Calif., man was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder by an Allegheny County jury in the 2016 shooting death of a Jefferson Hills motel owner.

Derrick “Chino” Gallaway, 63, also was found guilty of robbery, theft and tampering with evidence in the death of Denhad Taiedi, 78, at the Jefferson Hills Motel on Route 51.

Gallaway will be sentenced on Nov. 25. A first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

Taiedi was found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head on May 27, 2016 at the motel’s front desk where he worked as night clerk. DNA evidence at the scene led police to Gallaway and two witnesses told investigators he tried to enlist their help in a robbery plot after the group used drugs in one of the motel’s rooms, authorities said in a criminal complaint.

Gallaway was charged three months after the killing and was captured in November 2017 at a Sacramento hospital by U.S. Marshals. Trial started last week.

Taiedi and his wife, Linda, purchased the motel in 2001. She died in 2013.

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