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A military jury found a sergeant guilty June 10 of premeditated murder for the shootings of two fellow soldiers last year.

Sgt. Aaron Stanley faces a sentence of life in prison. An eight-member court-martial panel began considering his punishment after bringing in the verdict.

Stanley was convicted of killing Staff Sgt. Matthew Werner and Spc. Christopher D. Hymer in September at Stanley’s farmhouse about 30 miles west of Fort Riley, Kan.

During his court-martial, Stanley argued he acted in self-defense, but prosecutors said he shot the two men to protect an illegal drug trafficking operation, believing the victims to be informants for police.

Stanley and another soldier, Sgt. Eric Colvin, had acknowledged manufacturing methamphetamines and growing marijuana at the farmhouse.

Stanley pleaded guilty at the start of his court-martial to drug use, drug possession, being absent without leave and adultery. He faces up to 37 years in prison on those charges.

Third drill sgt. guilty of abuse

A third drill sergeant was convicted June 8 of abuse in a trainee maltreatment scandal at Fort Knox, Ky.

Sgt. 1st Class Ricky L. Stauffer was found guilty by a jury on one count of abuse and another of obstruction of justice, a Fort Knox spokeswoman said. He was busted down one rank to staff sergeant and issued a letter of reprimand.

Stauffer was found to have slammed a trainee into a wall and to have threatened trainees with punishment if they cooperated with an investigation into the abuse.

This was the third court-marital in a case that has implicated four drill sergeants and the commander of E Company, 1st Battalion, 81st Armor Regiment.

Stauffer may have elected to face a jury after the judge tried the first two drill sergeants without one and gave each a very different sentence.

Fort Lewis soldier sentenced to 20 years

A Fort Lewis, Wash., soldier hung his head and wept when he was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder for drowning his wife in a bathtub.

Sgt. James Kevin Pitts said he was sorry for killing his wife, Tara Pitts, 28, only weeks after he returned from a year in Iraq.

Prosecutors said Pitts was angry with his wife for threatening to report to his superiors an affair he had with another soldier.

Returning GI charged in pipe bombing

A soldier just back from Iraq tried to blow up the car of a romantic rival with a pair of pipe bombs, police said.

Jesse Magnuson, 21, is facing a number of felony charges in a dispute with another man over Magnuson’s wife, Northfield, Mass., Police Chief Gary Sibilia said June 9.

The intended victim, whose name was not released, was not in his car June 8 when one pipe bomb exploded. The state police bomb squad detonated the second one.

Magnuson was charged with explosive malicious destruction, attempting to burn a motor vehicle and throwing an explosive device.

Police investigate officer’s death

Police were investigating the death of a Fort Hood, Texas soldier who was in his house with multiple gunshot wounds.