RALEIGH — Manuel Salvador Zamora Diaz, who pleaded guilty this month to killing a grant writer with the state Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, will spend the next 8-1/2 years in prison.

The Raleigh man was sentenced this week in Wake County Superior Court for the second-degree murder of Jurgen Dietmar Cheston, a 48-year-old state government worker found fatally stabbed in his home in August 2009.

The men were acquaintances, prosecutors said.

Cheston was found dead in his home at 2700 Westhampton Place on Aug. 21, 2009.

Cheston, a native of Kinston, had worked with the state juvenile justice department for three years. His co-workers called the police after he failed to show up for work all week and did not answer repeated knocks at his door by colleagues who were concerned for his well-being.

Diaz has been in jail since October 2009, when he was arrested and accused of the slaying.