US citizen Gabriel Natale-Hjorth (C), who is being tried along with another US citizen on murder charges after Carabinieri officer Mario Cerciello Rega was killed in July 2019, arrives for a hearing during their trial in Rome, on May 5, 2021. - Finne ROME - A jury in Rome on Wednesday convicted two American friends in the 2019 slaying of a police officer in a tragic unraveling of a small time drug deal gone bad, sentencing them to life in prison.The jury deliberated more than 12 hours before delivering the verdicts against Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale Hjorth, 20, handing them Italy’s stiffest sentence.Elder and Natale-Hjorth were indicted on charges of homicide, attempted extortion, assault, resisting a public official and.