NEW BEDFORD — A jury yesterday found Eric J. Durand of Swansea guilty of first-degree murder in the death of 4-year-old Brendon Camara, a conviction that imprisons Durand for life with no possibility of parole.

The verdict came after more than three days’ jury deliberation in New Bedford Superior Court. Medical experts testified for the prosecution that on Oct. 20, 2003, a blunt-force injury — whether a kick, strike or a squeezing, crushing motion — severed part of the lower intestine from Brendon’s abdomen and split his pancreas, and that he was found to have no pulse. Durand was also convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon: a toy shark he threw that morning at Brendon, whom Durand had told to stand in a corner after discovering Brendon had urinated in his pants.

With a first-degree conviction, Durand, 26, of 99 Burnside Drive, has the right to an automatic appeal of the jury’s decision to the state Supreme Judicial Court.

In October 2003, Durand had stayed overnight with Laura Bowden, the mother of Brendon and his twin Michael, who lived in basement rooms of the house at 212 Calvin Ave. in Somerset. The next morning, Oct. 20, Bowden was working at McDonald’s in the Building #19 plaza in Swansea when Patricia Paquette – who lived in her parents’ house on Calvin Avenue and sometimes babysat Brendon – called, saying Durand had told her Brendon fell down stairs in the house. According to testimony, Bowden asked Durand if he called 911, he said no, she told him to call it and he did.

Paramedics found no pulse and could not revive the boy, who was later declared dead at Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River.

Lewis Armistead, a Bristol County assistant district attorney, argued in court that Durand changed his story during about eight hours of videotaped Somerset police questioning. Durand told investigators he saw the twin boys go to the basement stairs but he did not follow and that Michael told him Brendon fell. Durand said Brendon said he was all right.

Durand later said that he had gone downstairs, when the police during the interview told him Paquette said he had, according to Armistead. Durand said something to the effect of “I didn’t hurt him” or hit him at one point, and at another point, that he didn’t hit in order to hurt or kill him, Armistead told the jury.

No one saw Durand strike the boys, defense lawyer Judith Borges countered through testimony, and no one witnessed Durand hit, squeeze or crush Brendon that day. Borges also cited testimony to raise questions several times about Patricia Paquette, who was also in the house at the time of Brendon’s fatal injury.

Borges argued to the jury that the police aggressively tried to pin the fatal injury on Durand from the outset in the videotaped interview, while going easy on Paquette in her interview. And Bowden used profanity toward her children, and they toward her, and she sometime struck them, Borges told the jury, citing testimony.

Borges noted that the state medical examiners could not agree on whether Brendon had been struck, kicked or squeezed. But the prosecutor argued that mattered less than medical experts’ testimony that the fatal injury was not caused by a fall down stairs, as Durand had claimed.