WOBURN – A 36-year-old former Lowell man was sentenced to 16-18 years in state prison after he was convicted of two counts of manslaughter in the 2010 fatal stabbings of two city women in a dispute over $80 worth of cocaine.

After a three-week trial, a Middlesex Superior Court jury last week found Edwin Nunez guilty of a lesser charge of two counts of manslaughter in the July 23, 2010 stabbing deaths of Deborah Souza, 47, and Keyla Betancourt, 30, both of Lowell.

Prosecutor Thomas O’Reilly argued that Nunez went to the women’s Westford Street apartment and during an argument over $80 worth of cocaine and repeatedly stabbed the two women. Nunez was also stabbed in the struggle. Nunez fled the scene, seeking treatment at a local hospital, while the two women were left to die of their stab wounds, O’Reilly said.

At a sentencing hearing on Monday, Judge Mitchell Kaplan sentenced Nunez to 16-18 years in state prison, exceeding the state sentencing guidelines of eight-to 12-years in prison, explaining he is “cognizant of the brutality of these two deaths.”

Nunez was indicted on two counts of first-degree murder, but defense attorney Randall Power said the jury opted for a lesser charge of manslaughter because all those involved in this tragedy had drug and alcohol problems.

“We do not have any innocent bystanders here,” Power said.

But O’Reilly told the judge that what struck him about this crime was ”the brutality of it.” He described the incident as “two unarmed women being slashed and hacked to death.”

O’Reilly asked the judge to exceed the guidelines with two, consecutive 18-to 20-year state prison sentences, one sentence for each victim, “due to the brutality and callousness” of each woman’s death. But Power argued for an eight-to 10-year state prison sentence noting that after four years behind bars awaiting trial, Nunez is a “different person.”

During her victim-impact statement, Jeannette Souza, Deborah Souza’s daughter, said, her mother’s death “broke my heart beyond repair.”

Souza said she wanted Nunez to receive the maximum sentence and to videotape an apology to be broadcast on the 7 p.m. news because to Nunez has never apologized or shown any remorse for what he did. In killing her mother, Souza said Nunez robbed her and her young son of enjoying life’s milestones with her mother.

Souza admits that her mother was an addict, but added “that doesn’t mean she was a bad person.”

In a written impact statement read in court by O’Reilly, Betancourt’s daughter wrote that her mother was “an amazing woman” despite her drug addiction.