VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) _ A northwest Indiana man has been sentenced to 16 years in prison on a burglary charge linked to shooting deaths of two people inside a home just outside Valparaiso.

The (Munster) Times reports 22-year-old Alejandro Sanchez of Hammond was sentenced Tuesday. He pleaded guilty last month under a plea deal that called for prosecutors to drop two murder charges against him.

Forty-year-old Jeffery Trinka and 31-year-old Jennifer Guinn were killed at the house in Center Township in 2012. Sanchez told the court that he, his 22-year-old co-defendant, Julius Garza, and another person went to the house to buy marijuana. Garza is accused of shooting Trinka and Guinn.

Defense attorney Mitch Peters says Sanchez tried to prevent the killings.