FALL RIVER — After years of dodging full accountability in a string of violent cases, Tyler Baglini was convicted Tuesday of the September 2024 murder of a New Bedford woman who had befriended him. His guilty plea comes six years after he was charged with raping and strangling another woman in Rhode Island, a case that is still pending.

Baglini, 32, received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole in 25 years after he changed his plea to guilty in Fall River Superior Court. He had claimed innocence when police arrested him after he ran into the St. Luke’s Hospital emergency room with a stained kitchen knife, blood on his face, and a story of a stranger stabbing Kerri Fidalgo to death.

“I have watched him sit here in this courtroom, quiet and timid, as if he co

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