A 43-year-old Hastings man who pleaded no contest to first-degree murder in the beating deaths of his parents has been sentenced to life in prison.

Louis Conover, Jr. was sentenced Wednesday in Adams County District Court. That comes just a month after he entered his plea in an agreement that dropped weapons and escape charges. Adams County Attorney Donna Fegler-Daiss also agreed not to seek the death penalty.

Prosecutors had said Conover beat his parents, Louis and Coleen Conover, to death with a baseball bat. A family member discovered the bodies on February 10, 2003, two days after the couple was killed.

Police had said Conover had lived with his parents for some time, and they had asked him to move out shortly before they were killed.