{"id":105050,"date":"2025-08-29T20:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T20:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/105050\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T20:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T20:08:09","slug":"man-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-killing-msu-basketball-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/105050\/","title":{"rendered":"Man sentenced to life in prison for killing MSU basketball star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">ORANGE COUNTY, Fl. (WILX) &#8211; The man convicted of killing Michigan State University basketball star Adreian Payne has been sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Lawrence Dority, 31, was charged with fatally shooting Payne in Florida in 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wilx.com\/2022\/05\/10\/i-shot-him-orange-county-police-say-theres-cause-first-degree-murder-charge-payne-death\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wilx.com\/2022\/05\/10\/i-shot-him-orange-county-police-say-theres-cause-first-degree-murder-charge-payne-death\/\">\u2018I shot him\u2019 &#8212; Orange County police say there\u2019s cause for First Degree Murder charge in Payne death<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">After a lengthy legal battle, Dority was found guilty of second degree murder by a jury on July 30, 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/myeclerk.myorangeclerk.com\/CaseDetails?cItem=GZZHZYXGlRWeHMSucO15Q2CiZFXCKLyRUcUkZEBte2MCszsrOE1ugyGyLWdLpSB8pTYvl%2F0F2pIWrXGn9XrvZXwTrml4o5InQ5T9JEU5hxo%3D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/myeclerk.myorangeclerk.com\/CaseDetails?cItem=GZZHZYXGlRWeHMSucO15Q2CiZFXCKLyRUcUkZEBte2MCszsrOE1ugyGyLWdLpSB8pTYvl%2F0F2pIWrXGn9XrvZXwTrml4o5InQ5T9JEU5hxo%3D\">Dority was sentenced to life in prison on Friday, Aug. 29.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Dority was charged with killing Payne in May 2022. The defendant initially told investigators that Payne shot at him, and that he shot back in self-defense.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Officials later confirmed Payne did not have a gun when he was shot.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Man sentenced to life in prison for killing MSU basketball star\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/FXMIV6BV35DBZLALT2SPK2IZYI.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"546\" \/>Man sentenced to life in prison for killing MSU basketball star(WILX)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Police initially arrested Dority on a first degree murder charge, but the charge was later downgraded to second degree murder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">PREVIOUS COVERAGE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wilx.com\/2022\/05\/09\/former-spartan-star-adreian-payne-remembered-his-impact-off-court\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wilx.com\/2022\/05\/09\/former-spartan-star-adreian-payne-remembered-his-impact-off-court\/\">Former Spartan star Adreian Payne remembered for his impact on and off the court<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Payne is MSU\u2019s career leader in blocks, and one of nine players in MSU history with 1,200 career points and 700 career rebounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Payne played four seasons for the Spartans and head coach Tom Izzo. He was a first-round pick for the Atlanta Hawks in the 2014 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">After the draft, Payne played the NBA, including with the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Orlando Magic, and the NBA\u2019s G-League before playing abroad in Greece and China.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Former Spartan star Adreian Payne remembered for his impact on and off the court\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/APCHUIKQUZEVXKKI5STJM5KM5I.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Former Spartan star Adreian Payne remembered for his impact on and off the court<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Payne was also known for his bond with Lacey Holsworth, an eight-year-old girl with terminal cancer and MSU basketball superfan. Lacey passed away in 2014.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">PREVIOUS COVERAGE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wilx.com\/2022\/05\/10\/my-view-adreian-payne-will-be-remembered-his-relationship-with-lacey-holsworth\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wilx.com\/2022\/05\/10\/my-view-adreian-payne-will-be-remembered-his-relationship-with-lacey-holsworth\/\">In My View: Adreian Payne will be remembered for his relationship with Lacey Holsworth<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">His official MSU biography contains an extensive list of accolades, including placing in the top 15 in Big Ten statistics in multiple categories such as defensive rebounds, three-point field-goal average, scoring, free-throw percentage and blocks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Subscribe to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wilx.com\/newsletter\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wilx.com\/newsletter\/\" target=\"_blank\">News 10 newsletter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@wilxtv\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@wilxtv\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube page<\/a> to receive the latest local news and weather. Looking to hire people, or grow your business through advertising? Gray Digital Media is your one-stop marketing solution. <a href=\"https:\/\/wilx.graydigitalmedia.com\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Learn<\/a> more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WILX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fl. (WILX) &#8211; The man convicted of killing Michigan State University basketball star Adreian Payne has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[75591,64,63,726,14589,1348,48,3016,75590,2289,8440,2968,44,75593,22119,85,313,75592],"class_list":{"0":"post-105050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-adreian","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-breaking","13":"tag-breaking-news","14":"tag-crime","15":"tag-east","16":"tag-lansing","17":"tag-local-news","18":"tag-michigan","19":"tag-murder","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-newsbreak-app","22":"tag-payne","23":"tag-sports","24":"tag-trending","25":"tag-true"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}