CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Charleston man who pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his 15-year-old adopted daughter and wounding her brother could serve up to 23 years in prison.
Roy Roger Pittman, 70, appeared Monday before Kanawha Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit in an emotional sentencing hearing. Pittman previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for fatally shooting Brittany Pittman and attempted second-degree murder for shooting and injuring Matthew Pittman, Brittany’s brother, who also is Pittman’s adopted son.
Pittman faced up to 40 years in prison on the first charge, but Tabit sentenced him to 20; on the second charge, she sentenced him to one to three years. The sentences will run consecutively. He will get credit for the close to two years he has already served and he could be eligible for parole in 11 years.
Roy Pittman’s attorney Ronni Sheets asked the judge to give her client home confinement or at the very least, impose the minimum sentence.
“We are here today because of a tragedy. It’s devastated his entire family,” she said. “No one understands what happened.”
Sheets said her client has been an upstanding member of society for 69 years and said even Matthew Pittman, who was 18 when his father shot him in the leg, said that if his father was in his right mind, this never would have happened.
She also noted that Roy Pittman took care of 12 children, 10 of whom he and his wife had adopted.
Sheets said her client has no memory of what happened that day or several days before that, which she said could be because he shot himself in the face immediately thereafter…