Robert White Jr. bowed his head and wept as the mother of his victim asked him why he killed her son.
"All I want to know," said Helen Shelley, "is why. Why did you do it? Why did you take my son from me?"
But the Schlater man's obvious remorse didn't sway Leflore County Circuit Court Judge Margaret Judge Margaret Carey-McCray, who handed him a 20-year sentence. White will serve 15 years in prison and another five years of post-release supervision.
The judge handed down the sentence less than a month after a jury of 10 women and four men found White guilty of manslaughter in the May 9, 2004, shooting death of Edward Earl Shelley of 109 Second St. in Schlater.
Family members told the judge shortly before she handed down the sentence how much the killing had affected their lives.
"It's affected the family in all kinds of ways," said James Shelley, Earl Shelley's brother. "The night of the killing, my mom had to go to the hospital from the stress of the event."
The slaying hurt the family seemingly more because all of them grew up together, James Shelley said.
"I could never imagine him doing it," he said of White's action. "It's hard for me to believe."
Ebony Shelley, a niece of Earl Shelley's, said the family had planned to attend church together the next day. Shelley died in the early hours of Mother's Day.
"He asked me, 'Eb, will you go to church with me?'" the young woman testified as her voice choked with emotion. "It just hurts me to my heart to know he's gone."
During the trial, James Davis testified as an eyewitness to the shooting. He said as White left the cafe, a man identified at T.J. Brown Jr. shouted something. White stopped, got out of his car and answered.
Then, said Davis, Shelley got off his car and advanced toward White.
"I told him, 'Earl, Robert ain't talking to you,'" Davis testified. "He didn't pay no attention."
Davis told the jury that Shelley spewed curses at White as he walked closer to him.
White told Shelley that he had no problem with him, said Davis, and White headed back to his car.
Davis told the jury that White turned around and Shelley, "stepped up on him" again, and White shot the man once in the head.
"That was it," Davis told the jury, "He was shot. I probably would have done the same thing."
