A 43-year-old man was granted parole by the Massachusetts Parole Board earlier this week, 17 years after he killed a man during a robbery in Lowell, where he and an accomplice stole a can of marijuana.

Dennis Ortega was 26 when he shot and killed Denis Osorio in 2008. Almost exactly five years later, Ortega pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in April 2013.

Ortega made his first appearance before the Parole Board in 2023. The board’s decision to grant his release after his second hearing this April was five to one.

On the evening of April 30, 2008, Ortega and an accomplice arrived at Osorio’s apartment in Lowell, intending to rob him. The two men entered, and as soon as they were inside, Ortega pulled out a gun and or

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