ST. CHARLES, Ill. (STMW) - An Aurora man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for the 2006 murder of a former friend.

Mario Nevarez, 20, of the 700 block of Spring Street, was sentenced Thursday. In May, he was convicted of second-degree murder following a three-day trial.

Nevarez was 16 years old when he fired a single shot into the chest of his former friend, 14-year-old Juan Carlos Flores. Prosecutors said Nevarez and another person confronted Flores in an alley near his East Galena Boulevard home about an ongoing feud between them.

At a vigil held for Flores, the eighth-grader at Simmons Middle School was described as a funny, goofy kid.

According to family members and police, Flores was walking home from a friend's house and cut through the alley, as he always did.

Police believe that in that alley, just three doors from his own backyard, Flores saw Nevarez and another man. According to Flores' sister, the two had been friends for years.

Before the dispute, Nevarez had been over to Flores' house many times, where the two shared his mother's sandwiches and likely talked about girls or basketball, two of Flores' favorite topics.

According to prosecutors, Flores and Nevarez had gotten into an argument about a purse Nevarez had allegedly stolen from Flores' house. Flores apparently robbed Nevarez a short time later. The fatal shooting was retaliation by Nevarez, prosecutors alleged at trial.

A judge determined that Nevarez fired the fatal shot.

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