SMITHFIELD - Luciano Tellez claimed that a friend was driving when their car caused a fiery accident that killed a Johnston County father and son last year.

A jury didn't believe him. On Friday, it convicted Tellez, 32, of two counts of second-degree murder and one count of felony hit-and-run. Prosecutors said Tellez was drunk at the time.

Tellez was sentenced to 32 to 40 years in prison. An illegal immigrant, he will serve his prison term before being deported to his native Mexico.

In seeking a murder conviction, District Attorney Susan Doyle highlighted Tellez's history of driving drunk and without a license. Tellez was convicted of drunken driving in 2002 and again in 2005, when he drove into an apartment building. He said on the stand that he had never had a valid driver's license.

In March 2007, Dwayne Braswell, 35, of Clayton was driving a tractor-trailer on N.C. 210 when the Ford Contour carrying Tellez, Ramon Castro and another passenger breezed through a stop sign and hit him. The truck flipped over, landed in a ditch and caught fire, burning Braswell and his 9-year-old son, Jerry Braswell, beyond recognition.

Tellez said in court Friday that he told Castro that he was going to flee after the accident to avoid going to prison for violating his probation. Tellez said Castro vowed to tell police Tellez was driving, but that he would also help get him out of jail. Castro did not testify at Tellez's trial.

Police arrested Tellez at his Angier home the day after the accident. He told investigators he was driving at the time of the crash, but said in court that he did so only to keep his pact with Castro. Tellez said that he didn't know at the time that he could face murder charges; he had left before the truck caught fire.

"I didn't know that anyone had died," Tellez said in court through an interpreter.

Braswell and his son had gone to pick up his paycheck that Sunday evening, his wife Candy Braswell said in court. It was a weekly ritual that Jerry enjoyed.

When they were late, Candy Braswell said she figured her husband had gotten caught up in conversation. "Everywhere he went he met someone he knew and had long, lengthy conversations with them," she said.

By 9 p.m., she was worried enough to start calling people they knew. Soon after, state troopers arrived to tell her that her husband and son were gone.

She went outside to talk to them so that her 12-year-old daughter wouldn't hear. But when she got back inside, she realized her daughter had already heard.

"She covered her ears with her hands and said, 'I don't want to know,' " Candy Braswell said, choking back tears.

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