PRINCETON, W.Va. -- A man who pleaded guilty in a 2007 fatal shooting that was initially thought to be self defense has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Fifty-eight-year-old Milton Eugene Justice of Princeton was sentenced Monday in Mercer County Circuit Court. He'd pleaded guilty in May to second-degree murder in the death of 27-year-old Luther Vance Byrd.

Byrd was killed on April 1, 2007, outside a Princeton-area home that belonged to a woman who had once dated Justice.

The Mercer County Sheriff's Department at first thought the shooting could have been in self-defense because the victim had a pocket knife in his hand. But investigators later determined that the knife had been planted.

 

PRINCETON, W.Va. -- A man who pleaded guilty in a 2007 fatal shooting that was initially thought to be self defense has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Fifty-eight-year-old Milton Eugene Justice of Princeton was sentenced Monday in Mercer County Circuit Court. He'd pleaded guilty in May to second-degree murder in the death of 27-year-old Luther Vance Byrd.

Byrd was killed on April 1, 2007, outside a Princeton-area home that belonged to a woman who had once dated Justice.

The Mercer County Sheriff's Department at first thought the shooting could have been in self-defense because the victim had a pocket knife in his hand. But investigators later determined that the knife had been planted.