PITTSBURGH (AP) - Three people have pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the kidnapping and slaying of a Pittsburgh man last year that authorities said stemmed from a drug deal gone bad.
Twenty-two-year-old Mitchell Coles, 21-year-old Johnnie Raines and 25-year-old Erica Harris also all pleaded guilty Monday in Allegheny County to kidnapping and conspiracy in the death of 21-year-old Saevon Scott-Ponder. His bullet-riddled body was found in March 2016 near Pittsburgh’s Beltzhoover neighborhood.
Coles was sentenced to 20 to 50 years and Raines to 20 to 45 years; Harris will be sentenced Aug. 2.
Authorities said the three were seeking the victim over a drug debt, and the two men led him into the woods, told him to take off his shoes and then shot him 14 times with one gun.
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