RALEIGH - A Clayton man escaped the death penalty Monday when he pleaded guilty to killing his lover's husband days after the victim returned from Navy duty in the Middle East.

Andrew Canty admitted lying in wait for the man at a North Raleigh park where he thought his wife had brought him for a welcome-home tryst.

Canty's capital murder trial had been in its second week of jury selection. On a lunch break Monday, Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby decided to offer him a deal, sparing his life in exchange for a plea to first-degree murder.

Canty, 20, was sentenced to prison for the rest of his life. Before the sentencing, Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III asked Canty whether he had anything to say in court. He didn't.

The decision to spare Canty came after prosecutors weighed several facets of the case, said prosecutor Susan Spurlin. "There's no one factor," she said.

Canty's plea was the first conviction in the case. Canty's former lover, Monique Berkley, 27, is still in jail awaiting trial and could be the only defendant in the case to face the death penalty. Latwon Johnson, 20, a friend authorities say Canty recruited to help in the plot, is also facing a first-degree murder charge.

In court Monday, Spurlin described a calculated plot to kill 46-year-old Paul Berkley.

Spurlin said Canty became romantically involved with Monique Berkley after Paul Berkley, a member of the U.S. Navy Reserves, left for the Middle East in April 2005.

Canty grew up in Brooklyn and Queens and had moved to Clayton. He had a rocky transition to the area -- he was considered a dropout after missing too many days at Clayton High School in the months before the killing. Canty, then 18, had moved in with Monique Berkley, then 26, and her two teenage stepchildren.

The plotting went on for weeks in late 2005 as Paul Berkley's scheduled leave from Bahrain approached, Spurlin said. Canty and Monique Berkley talked about how to split the $400,000 Berkley thought she'd get from her husband's life insurance, Spurlin said.

Canty bought a gun and recruited Johnson to help carry out the killing, authorities said. Johnson, who had dated Paul Berkley's daughter, would get $70,000 for his part, according to court testimony.

The welcome home

On Dec. 18, 2005, three days after Paul Berkley returned home, Monique Berkley equipped herself with a basket filled with chocolate, wine, candy, candles and condoms. She and her husband had dinner and went to see the movie "King Kong." Later, in the early morning hours of Dec. 19, she brought her husband to Millbrook Exchange Park in North Raleigh with the promise of a romantic encounter in the frigid night air under the park's gazebo, Spurlin said.

Canty and Johnson were waiting at the park, Spurlin said.

The Berkleys walked by the two on a park path. Canty approached from behind and fired a shot into the back of Paul Berkley's head, Spurlin said. Canty fired another shot into Monique Berkley's shoulder, apparently to make it appear as though the couple had been attacked at random, Spurlin said.

Canty and Johnson fled and tossed the gun in the Neuse River. They returned to Johnson's dorm room at East Carolina University in Greenville, Spurlin said. Monique Berkley called emergency dispatchers and said she and her husband had been attacked.

Breaking the case

The scheme unraveled when Monique Berkley talked to Raleigh detectives and confessed her role in the killing. She has remained in the Wake County jail since her December 2005 arrest on the murder charge.

The capital murder case against Canty began last week, and lawyers had picked five jurors by Monday morning. On Monday, Tommy Manning, one of Canty's attorneys, asked to be relieved because of what he called a conflict of interest. Manning wrote in a motion that another client of his overheard Johnson in jail bragging that he would do anything to help himself, including lying on the stand. Johnson's lawyer Bryan Collins, said that he expected that Johnson would have testified truthfully.

Manning's request to be taken off the case wasn't discussed because Wake County prosecutors Spurlin and Becky Holt returned from lunch and agreed to accept Canty's guilty plea.

Monique Berkley is scheduled to face a capital murder trial in October. Her father, Michael Wheeler, said earlier this month that he visits her once a month. He travels to Raleigh from the family's hometown of Tampa, Fla. Their visits consist of talking through video monitors set up at the Wake County jail. The father and daughter avoid talking about the murder.

Wheeler said he complied when Monique Berkley asked him to have a Catholic Mass said for her dead husband.

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