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South Jersey man guilty of manslaughter in fatal stabbing on the night the Eagles won Super Bowl

A Burlington County jury found a New Jersey man guilty of passion provocation manslaughter after he fatally stabbed a New York man during a street celebration minutes after the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2018. Supreme Life was acquitted, however, of a murder charge.

Antoine Ketler, center, and his father, Supreme Life, right, appear in court at the Burlington County Courthouse in Mt. Holly, NJ on March 13, 2019. They were tried for murder and attempted murder for a fight after the Philadelphia Eagles' 2018 Super Bowl victory.
Antoine Ketler, center, and his father, Supreme Life, right, appear in court at the Burlington County Courthouse in Mt. Holly, NJ on March 13, 2019. They were tried for murder and attempted murder for a fight after the Philadelphia Eagles' 2018 Super Bowl victory.Read moreDAVID MAIALETTI / Staff Photographer

A South Jersey man was acquitted of murder but convicted of passion provocation manslaughter Friday in the stabbing death of a man moments after the Eagles won the Super Bowl.

A jury in Mount Holly handed down the verdict against Supreme Life, 57, of Lumberton, after about six hours of deliberation. The jury also found Life guilty of attempted murder for stabbing a second man in the abdomen when a street fight broke out in Life’s neighborhood on Coriander Drive during the celebration of the Eagles’ victory over the New England Patriots.

Life, whose name was Charles Hoskins before he changed it for religious and personal reasons, could face more than 20 years in prison when he is sentenced in May by Superior Court Judge Charles Delehey in Mount Holly.

During the trial, Life testified that the fight began when his son was overheard making an insulting remark about the Eagles. Life, a former landscaper and Army veteran, said he ribbed his son, Antoine Ketler, 33, a Dallas Cowboys fan, about the Eagles win, and Ketler replied, “F— the Eagles."

Ketler was also charged in the incident. But the jury acquitted him of attempted murder after his lawyer, Anthony Aldorasi, argued that Ketler did not have a knife and only participated in the fistfight.

Life had testified that he was just trying to help his son and said that he stabbed Moriah Walker, 26, of Brooklyn, N.Y., in self-defense. Walker died from a wound to the heart at Cooper University Hospital in Camden after the attack. He also had a stab wound to the chest, a leg, and an arm.

Life also stabbed Walker’s friend, Raheem Williams, 23, of Queens, New York City, during the fracas. Life testified that he used a pocket knife with a four-inch blade during the attack.

The two New York men were driving by, heard the remark, and attacked Ketler, Life said, in response to questions posed by his defense attorney, Michael Riley.

Assistant Burlington County Prosecutor Robert VanGilst said the victims were leaving a Super Bowl party in the neighborhood.

Life and Ketler had been held in the Burlington County Jail since the incident. Ketler was released Friday.