WVVA TV Bluefield Beckley WV News, Weather and SportsW.Va. woman gets 35 years for informant's murder
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Associated Press - July 27, 2010 4:25 PM ET
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - A Mingo County woman will spend 35 years in prison for helping to kill a drug informant in 2005.
That's the sentence handed down Tuesday by U.S. District Judge John Copenhaver.
Copenhaver could have given defendant Valerie Friend a life term for her role in the shooting and beating death of Carla Collins.
But Friend pleaded guilty instead of going to trial. She then testified against co-defendant George Lecco before a jury convicted him in April as the murder's mastermind.
Lecco had been selling cocaine out of his Mingo County pizza parlor. Friend said she and a second woman, Patricia Burton, were acting on his orders when they killed the 33-year-old Collins.
Burton also pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison last week.
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