A woman has been sentenced to 17 to 34 years in state prison in the shooting death of an elderly man during a 2013 home invasion and robbery in northern Pennsylvania.
Fifty-eight-year-old Debra Lockett of Morris Township pleaded no contest Friday in Tioga County to third-degree murder in the September 2013 slaying of 82-year-old Oliver Litzelman.
Prosecutors said Lockett went to the couple's home claiming she was a Litzelman descendant and doing genealogy work, then announced a robbery and killed the victim and seriously injured his wife.
Public defender Mary Morris told The (Williamsport) Sun-Gazette that his client didn't want to risk a life term on a first- or second-degree murder conviction.
District Attorney Krista Deats said the plea deal was offered because the victim's family wanted closure.
