BOSTON (AP) – A man who served 11 years in prison for his role in a bombing that killed a Boston police officer received a six-month suspended sentence Thursday for violating his parole.

Thomas Shay Jr. was convicted in the 1991 killing of bomb squad officer Jeremiah Hurley Jr.

Authorities said Shay and his partner, Alfred Trenkler, were trying to kill Shay’s father, Thomas L. Shay, for insurance money. But as Hurley and another officer inspected the bomb in the father’s driveway, it exploded, killing Hurley and wounding his partner, Francis Foley.

Prosecutors said Shay hated his father and helped Trenkler build the bomb by purchasing electrical components. Trenkler is now serving a life sentence.

Shay was arrested by Durham, N.H., police on June 18 after he left the Coolidge House – a halfway house in Boston – two months before his scheduled release. Police in Durham spotted his Massachusetts vanity license plate “WASSUP.”

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel gave Shay a 6-month suspended sentence for violating his parole, and extended his remaining period of supervised release from two to three years. He must spend the first four months of his suspended sentence at the Coolidge House, Zobel said.

Before he was sentenced, Shay, now 33, told Zobel he had lived in 39 foster homes, institutions and prisons in nine states during his life. He told the judge he needs structure in his life and would be willing to start his five years of probation over again.

“I want to work. I want to have friends. …I want to live an ordinary life,” he said.

“It scares me a little to think that I will be out in the world one day, alone and unprotected.”

As a condition of his supervised released, Shay must undergo mental health counseling as directed by his probation officer.