A Chelsea man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for stabbing 22-year-old Luis Garcia-Calle to death outside a Williams Street bar two years ago, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said today.

After about two days of deliberations, a Suffolk Superior Court jury found MARIO MARTINEZ BONILLA (D.O.B. 6/1/86) guilty of first-degree murder under the theory of deliberate premeditation for the Feb. 27, 2008, stabbing that left Garcia-Calle mortally wounded. The East Boston man died in his hospital bed two weeks later.

Prior to sentencing, Assistant District Attorney Ian Polumbaum told Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Donovan that Garcia-Calle’s parents, who flew in from their native Colombia for the trial and who were in the courtroom when the verdict was read, were “too overcome with emotion” to provide the court with an impact statement.

Polumbaum added that the victim’s parents had flown to the United States in 2008, shortly after they received the news that their son had been stabbed, and were able to see him before he died.

“They asked for me to relay the message that, shortly after he was stabbed and was in the hospital, in the early part of his stay, he was able to recognize his mother and said ‘Mama,’” Polumbaum told the court.

“That moment of poignancy touched every heart in the room,” Conley said. “We can only hope that this verdict provides Mr. Garcia-Calle’s family with the satisfaction that we found justice on his behalf.”

Donovan sentenced Bonilla to the mandatory sentence for first-degree murder, life in prison without the possibility of parole.

During the course of a five day trial, Polumbaum proved that on the evening of Feb. 27, 2008, Bonilla engaged the victim and others in a verbal altercation at the El Carriel bar. As a result of that altercation, bar staff asked him to leave and he refused. Garcia-Calle then joined the staff in asking Bonilla to leave.

“I’ll be outside,” Bonilla said as he left.

Garcia-Calle left the barroom and went outside. A fistfight erupted between the two men in the parking lot. During the trial, witnesses testified that they saw Bonilla striking Garcia-Calle, who then staggered back into the bar as Bonilla fled the scene.

Garcia-Calle suffered multiple stab wounds and was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital for treatment. He remained there until he succumbed to his injuries on March 17, 2008.

The assailant was unknown to any of the bar staff or the victim himself at the time of the incident. Armed with a description but not a name, Chelsea Police – and, later, State Police detectives with jurisdiction over all homicides in Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop – undertook a far-reaching investigation, conducting multiple interviews and urging anyone with information on the case to come forward.

On June 5, 2008, however, Bonilla returned to El Carriel and began drinking heavily. Bar staff recognized him as the man who had fought with Garcia-Calle and called police; when they arrived, he was so intoxicated that he could not speak with them. He was taken into protective custody. In the days that followed, investigators obtained multiple identifications of Bonilla as the assailant and Suffolk prosecutors approved a warrant charging him with murder on June 10.

On Dec. 11, 2009, a different panel of twelve jurors declared itself hopelessly deadlocked in its deliberations, prompting a mistrial. Prosecutors sought to re-try the case at the earliest opportunity.

Eliany Colon-Vargas was the assigned victim-witness advocate. Bonilla was represented by attorney William White. Proceedings took place in courtroom 808 of Suffolk Superior Court.