Coast man was convicted of murder as a teen. Now, he’s got a shot at freedom.

Terry Hye Jr. was seven days shy of his 17th birthday when he took part in a high-profile murder of a Hattiesburg man.

After he went to prison to serve life without parole for the capital murder of Michael David Porter in Moss Point, Hye told a judge he joined a prison gang that he has since disassociated himself.

In the years that followed, Hye often cursed and threatened guards and was cited for possession of prison contraband, such as gang material, a cellphone and handmade knife, or shank, court papers say.

But Hye’s involvement in crime was likely the result of his inability to “extricate” himself from a “crime-producing family” that included self-professed drug and alcohol-addicted parents and a mother who supplemented her income through prostitution before going to prison for assaulting an officer, Judge Dale Harkey said.

Harkey resentenced Hye, now 26, this month to life in prison with parole for the October 2008 robbery and killing of Porter outside a Moss Point convenience store.

The ruling means Hye has a shot at life beyond prison walls.

Though Hye’s participation in the “cold-blooded, senseless killing deserves punishment,” the judge said, Hye did not shoot Porter and none of the evidence suggests he “intended the killing to take place.”

Hye was up for resentencing because of a Supreme Court ruling that said it was violation of the Eighth Amendment – which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment – to automatically sentence anyone 18 or younger to life for certain violent crimes, such as murder.

Hye and two others, Darwin “D.J.” Wells, then 15, and Telvin Benjamin, then 14, were charged in Porter’s murder.

Benjamin was later acquitted of the charges.

Wells was the actual shooter, Harkey said, and planned the attempt to “hit a lick,” or rob someone for money for him and his friends, which included Hye, to attend the annual Jackson County fair.

The judge previously resentenced Wells to life without parole.

Porter’s mother, Beverly Porter, was angered to learn Hye had a chance at living life as a free man in the future.

For more than 10 years, she said, she and her family have been dealing with the courts regarding Porter’s death and the subsequent trials, sentencings, retrials and resentencings in the case.

“There was nothing timely about the trials or the sentences,” Porter said. “I only hope that my family can now begin the healing process.”

This story was originally published July 16, 2018 at 3:05 PM.