COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- A jury in Colorado has acquitted a former soldier of first-degree murder in the death of a fellow Iraq war veteran but convicted him on a lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder.

Louis Bressler was convicted yesterday in the Dec. 1 slaying of Illinois native Kevin Shields.

Prosecutors contended that Bressler killed Shields because Shields knew too much about robberies that Bressler and two other veterans planned to commit.

After the verdict, Debra Shields of Loves Park (Illinois) said, whether or not Bressler was convicted, she's always known he was guilty of killing her son.

Kevin Shields was raised by his grandparents, Madlyn and Ivan Shields in the Rockford area. The two sat in the front row of the courtroom with Debra Shields and Kevin Shields' widow during Bressler's nearly two-week trial.