MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) – A Newmarket man convicted of killing two people over drug territory was sentenced Thursday to 100 years in prison, believed to be the harshest penalty imposed in New Hampshire for second-degree murder.

A Hillsborough County Superior Court jury in July found Christopher Beltran, 26, guilty in the April 2003 killings of Christopher Squeglia and Amy Knott, both 35.

The state sought a 60-year sentence but Judge James Barry imposed two consecutive 50-year terms.

Prosecutors said Beltran was out for revenge against Squeglia, a rival in Manchester’s drug trade, and that Knott was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Beltran’s lawyers maintained that an accomplice, Richard Badeau, was the real killer.

The lawyers maintained the victims were killed in a drug-induced frenzy by Badeau.

“He just went nuts,” lawyer Cathy Green said in her opening statement. Badeau testified that he provided the murder weapon and watched Beltran shoot the victims.

Prosecutors say Beltran targeted Squeglia because the rival drug dealer had beaten one of his customers.

According to court documents, Beltran told police that Squeglia “started to run like a chicken” before he shot him in the back.

According to an affidavit, Beltran called Benoit Goupil of Manchester after the shootings. Beltran “loved how he looked him (Squeglia) in the face” before gunning him down, Goupil told police.

Beltran also told Goupil that Knott, a mother of two, was crying when he shot her in the face, court documents said.

He said he “killed her first and Chris ran like a coward,” Goupil told police.

Beltran’s girlfriend, Arica Siegel, 20, with whom he lived at the home of Siegel’s mother in Newmarket, also gave police a detailed account of the shootings under immunity.