A central Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to seven to 14 years in prison in the slaying of his daughter-in-law a decade and a half ago.
Sixty-six-year-old Kenneth Leighty of Altoona pleaded guilty in December in Huntington County to third-degree murder in the 1999 slaying of 23-year-old Sherry Leighty.
Her body was found in Warriors Mark Township in May after prosecutors offered the defendant a plea bargain.
The (Altoona) Mirror reports that defense attorney Thomas Hooper read a statement from Leighty at Thursday's brief sentencing hearing expressing regret for the pain he caused to relatives.
The victim's brother and sister told Senior Judge Stewart Kurtz what their sister meant to them and how not knowing what had happened to her for so long had affected them.
Sherry Leighty's husband -- the defendant's son, Aaron -- told investigators that he at first believed she might have run off to Maine with another man, but began to doubt that after she failed to contact their children in subsequent weeks, months and years. Officials said their divorce had been finalized days before she disappeared.
