A retrial has been ordered in an Italian murder case involving a former Santa Barbara County college student.
An undercover officer was stabbed to death in 2019 during what was supposed to be a drug sting in Rome. Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth were convicted of killing the officer. They were originally sentenced to life in prison, but their sentences were later reduced to just over two decades each.
Elder is a former Santa Barbara City College student.
The court hasn’t explained yet why it’s ordering a new trial. The two men claimed they didn’t know the man was an undercover officer, and that they acted in self-defense.
