Aaron Powell has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murders of estranged wife Christina Powell and Mario Masciarelli. Broome County Judge Joseph Cawley handed Powell that same sentence back in 2014 after his first trial. Powell appealed and was granted a retrial in 2017.

On Friday, as corrections officers led Powell out of the courtroom in handcuffs, the friends and families of the victims erupted into claps and cheers. The outcry was not stifled by court officers as is usual protocol. That display of relief earned after the families sat through this trial twice in the last 5 years. 

Addressing the court, Mirella Masciarelli, the mother of Mario, described the horror she felt when she learned her son's killer would be given another trial. She says Cawley and former District Attorney Gerald Mollen "disappointed" her and filled her with "distrust" for the system. 

In January 2019, a jury again found Powell guilty of tracking down Christina and Mario and carrying out a brutal double murder.

Powell was separated from his wife in March 2013, when she made plans to meet up with friends and Mario Masciarelli at the Airport Inn. Mirella told the court in her statement that her son was loved and he "lived every day like it was his last." 


Mario Masciarelli is remembered as having "lived every day like it was his last."
 

As part of his argument that Powell is denied of any chance of parole, Special Prosecutor Chris Grace reminded the court that while Powell was the one who wanted to end the marriage with Christina, it was jealous rage that drove him to murder.
 

During the trial, witnesses told a story of a jealous man who tracked down his wife and her friend, followed them from the Airport Inn to Christina's Lisi Lane home, and then killed them both. Powell, an almost immediate suspect, was tracked down in Pennsylvania, where he had fled.

Investigators say Powell drove a borrowed car to the crime scene, parked around the corner from the house, and walked through backyards to get to the residence. He had a garage door opener, so there was no forced entry to the house. Inside the borrowed car, police found a baseball bag, which was missing a bat. Powell took that bat inside the house with him, using it to fatally beat Mario. He then strangled Christina with an electrical cord. 

It's been six years since Christina and Mario's deaths, but every day throughout the second trial friends and family packed the courtroom. They were back in court for the sentencing on Friday. Reliving the case again from start to finish.