By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

A Louisiana man will spend the rest of his life in prison after he pleaded guilty to stabbing and killing his infant daughter and the baby’s mother at an Alabaster hotel in 2011.

During a Jan. 16 hearing in front of Circuit Court Judge Dan Reeves at the Shelby County Courthouse, Gramercy, La., resident Terrance Patterson, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of capital murder for killing a child younger than 14 and one count of capital murder for killing two or more people. Patterson appeared with his appointed attorneys, Gary Young and Michael Shores.

After accepting Patterson’s guilty pleas, Reeves sentenced Patterson to life without the possibility of parole for each count, according to court records.

According to Alabama law, life without parole was the least severe sentence for the capital crimes, which could have carried death penalties.

Alabaster police arrested Patterson in July 2011 and charged him with two counts of capital murder after police said he stabbed and killed Columbiana resident Tryphena Lacey, 24, and her daughter, 9-month-old Trinity Lacey Patterson, in Room 11 at the Shelby Motor Lodge. The incident was the first double-homicide in Alabaster’s history, Alabaster Police Chief Curtis Rigney said previously.

Patterson originally pleaded not guilty to the two counts of capital murder during an August 2011 hearing at the Shelby County Courthouse, and his jury trial was scheduled to begin on Feb. 10 in the Shelby County Courthouse.

During a Sept. 20, 2013 hearing, Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Dan Reeves denied a motion filed by Patterson’s attorneys seeking to bar the death penalty.