David Mello, left, stands in court yesterday to give a statement apologizing for the death of Marc Quintal of Fall River, who was shot during a botched drug deal in Providence in 2007.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

PROVIDENCE — “There are days when I feel that I can’t take the pain anymore … I cry every day … I want to be able to see my baby boy again.”

A weeping Delores “Dee” Bettencourt, 40, of Fall River, yesterday addressed Judge Robert D. Krause in Superior Court, as Krause prepared to sentence the man who murdered her 20-year-old son, Marc Quintal.

“All I have is a nightmare.”

Bettencourt asked the judge to lock up for life David Mello, 21, a convicted car thief who has had various addresses in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and who pleaded guilty in her son’s murder.

But she was asking for the impossible.

Krause sentenced Mello to 40 years’ imprisonment on four charges, including second-degree murder. With suspended sentences to run consecutively, Krause noted, Mello will be under state supervision for 70 years. But he would be eligible for consideration for parole, by law, after 10 years.

Krause said to Mello, you will be supervised “until you are a doddering old man, if you make it that far. … If you make it to 91, I’ll be shocked.”

Because Mello plea-bargained with the office of Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch and won a reduction in the major charge of first-degree murder, he was spared the much lengthier sentence he likely would have received if he had been convicted at trial. Bettencourt could not have, by law, what she requested when she read a victim-impact statement to the judge during a sentencing hearing.

Later in the day, Krause sentenced Mello’s confessed confederate, Sylvester Moses, 21, whose last known address was 519A Dexter St., to 20 years’ imprisonment. Moses pleaded guilty to the same four charges as Mello including second-degree murder.

Quintal was shot to death Aug. 15, 2007, when he drove with two men and a woman from Fall River, where he lived, to the driveway of a house in South Providence, for what he thought would be an uncomplicated deal to buy 100 Oxycontin pills, according to law enforcement authorities.

He pulled into the driveway at Mello’s direction. Mello, who carried a loaded gun, and Moses, with an unloaded gun, were waiting with robbery on their minds. Mello introduced himself to Quintal, who was sitting behind the wheel, and shook his hand.

Then things got crazy. Moses, screaming for the $3,000 in buy money, squeezed his upper body through the open driver’s side front window and wrestled with Quintal. Quintal resisted and tried to back the car out of the driveway, but Moses managed to shift the car back into park.

Mello, who was standing outside the open driver’s side rear window, fired once into Quintal’s back with a small-caliber gun, wounding him fatally. Witnesses said the shot sounded like “a puff.”

Before Krause passed sentence, Mello, who has an elongated goatee and wore a grayish sweatsuit and white sneakers for his trip to court from the Adult Correctional Institutions, rose briefly to speak.

“I’m sorry,” he said, apologizing to Quintal’s parents.

Bettencourt, who also has a daughter, Erica, has set a new course in life since the tragedy. She founded a coping-with-grief group called Butterfly Wishes and plans to counsel youths who have had trouble with drugs, anger management and other issues and who attend Durfee Alternative High School as well as adults with drug problems.

Outside court she said she remains dissatisfied that Mello will be able to get out of prison.

gsmith@projo.com