FREDERICK, Md. (AP) - A Frederick man is going to prison for life for fatally shooting his former girlfriend in front of her young son last year.

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The Frederick News-Post reports that 28-year-old Melvin Smith was sentenced Thursday in Frederick to life without parole plus 40 years for the first-degree murder of Tranice Richardson.

A jury convicted Smith in June for shooting the 33-year-old woman seven times outside her apartment in July 2011.

Smith was at large for nearly three weeks after the shooting. He was arrested near Pittsburgh.

Court records show that Smith fathered at least one of Richardson's four children.

This is Smith's second homicide conviction. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison in 2000 for shooting a Baltimore man who had killed Smith's cousin.