LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) - A convicted child molester whose murder of a 10-year-old boy led to the creation of Indiana's sex offender registry has been resentenced to life in prison without parole.

A Tippecanoe Superior Court judge sentenced 37-year-old Christopher M. Stevens on Monday.

Stevens had been sentenced to death for the 1993 murder of Zachary Snider of Cloverdale.

But a federal appeals court set aside his death penalty in 2007 and let the murder conviction stand after determining that defense lawyers at the original trial hadn't presented adequate evidence of Stevens' mental illness.

Stevens had been scheduled to stand trial again in February, but the life sentence was part of a deal reached in September with the boy's parents, who agreed to stop seeking the death penalty against
Stevens.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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