Jun. 10—LOCKPORT — A Niagara County Court jury took less than three hours Friday to find a Falls man guilty on four of six counts in an indictment that accused him of the murder and sexual abuse of a young mother in September 2020.

The jury found Atrel M. Hudson, 29, guilty of first- and second-degree murder, first-degree burglary and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon in the slaying of Mariah Wilson. He faces a sentence of up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Hudson was acquitted on a charge of first-degree sexual abuse and a first-degree murder charge tied to the alleged sexual abuse.

"Mariah Wilson was a young single mother living with her two young children in Niagara Falls," Niagara County District Attorney Brian Seaman said after the jury verdict. "This defendant entered her home in the middle of the night, entered her bedroom, brutally beat her, and then shot her to death while her children were in the other room."

Seaman, who personally tried the case alongside First Assistant District Attorney Doreen Hoffmann, indicated that prosecutors will seek the life sentence from Niagara County Court Judge John Ottaviano.

"These despicable crimes merit the maximum allowable sentence, life without the possibility of parole," Seaman said. "A person who can commit crimes of this brutality, against a defenseless young woman, should never see a moment of freedom again."

Hudson remains jailed pending his sentencing. Seaman credited the work of Falls Police and what he called "the indispensable work of the Niagara County Sheriff's Office Forensic Laboratory."

Jurors heard five days of testimony in the case and listened to closing arguments from Niagara County prosecutors and Hudson, who acted as his own defense attorney. Hudson was assisted throughout the case by a Niagara County public defender.

He also faces a possible sentence of up to 25 years behind bars as a result of an earlier conviction in October for first-degree robbery in an unrelated case. That sentence would likely run consecutively to his prison term in the murder case.

Hudson has been jailed since his arrest in October 2020 in connection with the hold-up of a convenience store on Pine Avenue in September 2020. He was indicted in that case in February 2021 and charged in the murder case in May 2022.

Patrol officers had been called to a home at 1701 LaSalle Ave. on the morning of Sept. 4, 2020, to "check the welfare" of the resident of an apartment there. When they arrived, officers said they found Wilson's body lying on the floor of her apartment, deceased.

Wilson, 28, was the mother of two young children.

In October, a Niagara County Court jury convicted Hudson of the armed robbery of a Cataract City convenience store. A co-defendant, Keyon Barber, pleaded guilty to the same charge just before the start of jury selection Hudson's case.