BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — On Friday, Wendy Howard has accepted a deal in the killing of her then-boyfriend Kelly Reese Pitts in 2019.
Last year a jury acquitted Howard of first and second-degree murder and other lesser charges. However, the jury remained split by 7 to 5 on the charge of manslaughter by the heat of passion. That charge would apply to someone who was in an uncontrollable rage when they killed someone else, especially if that person provoked them.
Howard shot and killed her ex-boyfriend Kelly Rees Pitts in Tehachapi back in 2019. Howard had found out that Pitts had sexually abused her two daughters not long before the shooting.
Prosecutors acknowledged that Pitts caused harm to the family, but said he should be in prison for that instead of dead.
On Friday, Howard accepted an Alford plea to the felony charge.
According to Cornell Law School, "An Alford plea, also known as a "best-interests plea," registers a formal admission of guilt towards charges in criminal court while the defendant simultaneously expresses their innocence toward those same charges. Like the similar nolo contendere plea, an Alford plea skips the full process of a criminal trial because the defendant agrees to accept all the ramifications of a guilty verdict (i.e. punishment)."
As part of the deal, Howard will get credit for time already served in the case, as well as one-year probation.
Howard left the courtroom in tears.
Final sentencing is set for May 4.
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