NEWBURYPORT - Kenneth Scott Richards was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole yesterday when a Newburyport Superior Court jury found the 49-year-old guilty of first-degree murder of his wife with deliberate premeditation and with atrocity and cruelty.

The verdict came on the third day of the trial, just hours after Richards, a former Rowley resident and Ipswich native, added a new twist - he testified that his wife of 10 years, Rachel Richards, was sick with bipolar disease and that she stabbed him in the chest. He claimed he killed her while attempting to defend himself with a baseball bat - a contradiction to earlier taped interviews with police in which Scott Richards admitted to killing his wife and stabbing himself in the chest, neck and wrists.

But during his sentencing, Judge Richard Welch said to Richards, who goes by his middle name, that he did not blame the murder on his wife's sickness.

The judge said it is a point that Richards would have to "acknowledge" at some time during the rest of his life.

Welch said it was "unthinkable" that Richards could "inflict this kind of injury" to both his wife and to his daughter, who was 9 years old at the time and will grow up without her parents.

"This obviously is, to quote Mr. Richards, a horrible thing," Welch said. "It was your acts that did this."

Richards sat appearing emotionless when the verdict was read.

Police found Scott and Rachel Richards together in bed in their Rowley condominium on a June morning in 2006, after their daughter found them there and called police. Police said Scott Richards was lying on the bed making gurgling noises and Rachel Richards, 38, was already cold to the touch.

Richards' testimony

The verdict and sentencing came in the afternoon, after a morning in which the defense attorney, John Andrews, called two witnesses to the stand: one of Scott Richards' friends and Richards himself.

Richards, dressed in a navy blue sports jacket, tie and black pants, told the jury about how he had met Rachel Richards while working on a job to extend the width of a section of Route 113 in Newburyport in 1993.

He said Rachel Richards worked nearby and that they would go to lunches together. About eight months later, they went on their first date, he said.

In 1996, the two were married and in the same year had a daughter, Samantha. Scott Richards described his relationship with his daughter, saying they played ball, board games, and enjoyed going to movies and zoos.

"Zoos were her big thing," he said. "I was a good dad to her."

Richards then described his relationship with Rachel Richards. He said during the Christmas before the June in which Rachel Richards was murdered, his wife grew depressed and he didn't know why.

"She was pretty depressed," he said. "I kept asking her, 'Are you OK? Is everything all right?'"

He then said that he learned of her having an affair in January, with an Exeter, N.H., man named Charlie. He said that they had a long talk the day he found out, and that she asked him for help.

"At first I blamed myself," he said. "I told her I love you very much; I'll help you with whatever I can."

Scott Richards said that by the time June 2006 rolled around his wife was "suicidal" with depression, had been taking medication off and on for her bipolar disease, and had major mood swings even throughout the course of a day. He said Rachel Richards was also seeing a therapist or psychiatrist for her problems.

He said that the night before he killed her they had a small argument when Rachel Richards refused to help Samantha with her homework.

"Why wouldn't you help Sam?" Scott Richards said he asked her, adding that it was "not a screaming match."

Richards said that night they sat down on the couch together and watched a Sean Connery movie while Samantha played in her bedroom.

"She always liked Sean Connery," Richards said. "It seemed normal."

He said they both went to bed between 10:15 and 10:30 p.m. and that he kissed Rachel Richards before shutting his eyes. At 3 a.m., he said he got up to use the bathroom, went to the kitchen to get a glass of water and saw his daughter sleeping on the couch, something she did often, he said.

Scott Richards said he then went to back to bed and fell asleep.

"Suddenly I was awake, and I didn't know what was going on," he said. "Rachel was above me ... she never did that before."

He said he reached up to push her away, and in doing so, he said he fell off the bed to the floor and felt a pain in his chest.

"When I looked down, there was a hole in my chest," he said. "I was shocked. I was lying there, and there was a hole in my chest."

Richards said he struggled to get up and after a few moments felt an object under the bed. He said he grabbed the object and used it as a crutch to get to his feet. He noticed at some point that it was a bat.

He said he looked up, and "Rachel was right there."

"A wave of fear came over me," he said. "I felt like she was going to hurt me.

"I picked up the bat, and I swung it at her," he said as he started to cry. "I hit her."

Richards said his wife asked him to stop. He said Rachel Richards took the bat with both hands and held it for a second before dropping it to the ground.

He said he remembered only hitting her once.

Scott Richards said he then walked with some difficulty around the bedroom and into the bathroom looking for hydrogen peroxide, a thing he always did when dressing wounds.

"I wasn't thinking rationally at all," he said.

He said he passed out with his body half off and half on the bed. He said he woke up again and saw a kitchen knife lying between him and his wife, who was lying on the bed without any movement.

"I started cutting my wrists," he said. "I didn't feel any pain."

Richards said he had no recollection of the taped conversations with police at Anna Jaques Hospital.

In those taped interviews, which the prosecution played earlier this week during the trial, Richards said he got the bat from the hallway closet, hit his wife with the bat after she said she would leave him and that they had no future together, and that he stabbed himself in the chest.

Closing arguments

Andrews, Richards' attorney, told the jurors - three woman and nine men - to pay attention to the 911 tape, in which he said Samantha told the dispatcher that "Mommy may have dug a hole in Daddy's belly."

"It certainly lacks clarity," he said, "but it is important."

Andrews also told the jury that it should remember that Richards gave statements to the police in the hospital after recovering from morphine and anesthesia. Andrews said that among the first words Richards heard after waking up was a nurse asking him, "Do you remember stabbing yourself?" It was a question that Andrews said he answered: "Yes. And I killed my wife."

"It's all about context," Andrews said, adding later that "he took the stand and looked you in the eyes and said he didn't remember making the statements."

He said that the jury should consider a lesser charge than first-degree murder.

"All I can ask you to do on behalf of Mr. Richards is to keep an open mind," he said. "Please don't allow the emotion of this case to affect you."

Kate MacDougall, the assistant prosecuting attorney, said in her closing arguments that there are times in life when people must be judged, even if that judgment stems from the single worst thing that they have ever done.

"And there are times when being sorry just isn't good enough," she said.

MacDougall said that Richards knew what he was doing when he killed his wife - making many conscious decisions before bringing the bat down on her head.

"He got out of bed and made step after step toward the hall closet," she said. "He felt the weight of the bat in his hands."

She said that Richards then walked back to his bedroom, where he took the bat and hit Rachel Richards.

"He did it again and again," MacDougall said. "He did it until she was bloody."

MacDougall said Scott Richards' testimony did not make sense - Rachel Richards couldn't hold the bat, since the medical examiner found her with badly bruised arms and hands, her right hand broken.

Furthermore, she said the medical examiner testified that Rachel Richards would have been knocked unconscious by the blows to her head.

"He left her there to die," she said. "He did more than what was necessary to kill her."

MacDougall also said it did not make sense that Rachel Richards would stab her husband then lie back down in bed, where she was found by police.

The prosecutor continued by saying that when Samantha called 911, it was not a child trying to piece together a crime scene or tell officers about what may have happened.

"It is a kid trying to put together what she just saw," MacDougall said. She said Samantha told the dispatcher: "I have school. I don't know what to do."