RALEIGH - Moments after a Wake jury decided he should spent the rest of his life in prison instead of face an executioner, Jakiem Wilson finally spoke publicly Saturday about why he stabbed his wife to death.

"She found out I was cheating on her, and I got scared," Wilson told members of Nneka Wilson's family in a Wake County courtroom. "I apologize for everything that happened," he said, before announcing that he loved his own family.

Wilson, 24, had been silent throughout his two-week capital murder trial, choosing not to testify.

His wife Nneka (Sutton) Wilson, 24, died after she was stabbed several times while exiting the shower in the couple's home outside Wendell on Feb. 12, 2007. Jakiem Wilson and two fellow gang members cleaned up the house afterward in an attempt to pin the killing on rival gang members, according to court testimony.

Jurors made their decision in less than an hour Saturday during a rare weekend court session. Earlier in the week, the jury had spent more than 13 hours over three days deciding to convict Wilson of first-degree murder instead of a lesser charge.

Saturday's life sentence was met by gasps of joy from Jakiem Wilson's family, while Claudette Hill, Nneka Wilson's mother, dropped her head and cried.

"There's a lot of loss on both sides," said Shalam Franklin, Jakiem Wilson's eldest sister. "I'm glad that people saw fit to save my brother's life."

Jakiem and Nneka Wilson married in March 2004 after she became pregnant with their son, Matthias. The couple's relationship was noticeably rocky to friends and family; a fight in 2004 led to Nneka Wilson's arrest for assaulting her husband. Hill said she urged her daughter to leave him after one incident, but Nneka Wilson told her mother she wasn't sure she'd be able to care for two young children on her own.

During the trial, Wake prosecutors leaned heavily on statements and testimony from Roderick Howell and Jamie Holder, members of Wilson's four-member gang affiliated with the Folk Nation who had helped clean up the crime scene.

Howell and Holder, in jail facing charges of accessory after a murder, told jurors that Wilson told them that he killed her because she nagged him and would want child support if the two broke up.

But Wilson's defense attorneys questioned whether testimony by Howell and Holder was embellished in an attempt to receive lenient sentences for their own pending charges.

Children considered

Before jurors made their decision Saturday, Wilson's attorneys asked them to think of Matthias and Naja, the couple's children, who one day might want to ask their father why he killed their mother.

"I can understand how a family member might want a death for a death," said Hoyt Tessener, one of Wilson's attorneys. "But revenge is not justice."

But Wake assistant district attorney Becky Holt told jurors that the viciousness of the attack warranted the death penalty.

"Nneka Wilson's last few minutes on this Earth were horrible," Holt said.

Since Nneka Wilson's death, her mother and stepfather have adopted Matthias, now 4, and Naja, 2. Nneka Wilson's sister, Maya Sutton, delayed her college plans after her high school graduation last year to help care for her niece and nephew.