Warren E. Marshall was sentenced Tuesday to more than 26 years for guilty pleas of second degree murder in the April 2008 death of Nelie “Jane” Pruitt and the attempted first degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury of Jeffrey Pyles, Pruitt’s son.
“I really wanted this to go to trial,” Pyles said.
Pyles, clutching a framed photo of his mother, related his memories from the night his mother was murdered, in a courtroom scattered with sobbing family members and friends.
Pruitt followed Pyles to the residence on Jo Layne Mill Road in Elkin, to be there for her while she retrieved some personal items from the home she’s shared with Marshall for several years. She went into the master bedroom and woke Marshall. Pyles remembers it was around 8 p.m., but Marshall was sleeping. They returned to the living room and Marshall sat down in his chair. Pruitt told Marshall she was done and was leaving.
The discussion quickly became an argument and Pyles told Marshall he was just going to make sure his mom left the relationship with what she came with.
Pyles related how Marshall had take a sock from the end table by his chair and began working at a knot in the end of it.
“I don’t believe my mom had any idea what was in the sock,” Pyles said. “I asked Warren what he was doing,” Pyles said. “And he said he was going to shoot me.”
Pyles remembered his mother screaming at him to run as Marshall pulled the gun from the sock.
“Just as I turned, he shot the first time,” Pyles said. “I left my mom inside because I thought I was the threat. I didn’t think he would turn the gun on her. I was just trying to get out of sight so he couldn’t shoot me again.”
Pyles continued through tears and sobs as he relived the horror of that night. He fell into the pond, and Marshall caught up with him and shot him again.
“When I fell all I could think of were my two little children and my wife,” Pyles said. “I just knew I was going to die.”
He was able to get up and got over a fence. Pyles believed he heard his mom scream and he stopped in the middle of the road and turned around just as Marshall shot his mother in the chest in their driveway.
A couple in a car picked Pyles up to take him to the hospital.
“As we went by I looked over and saw him sitting there beside my mom’s body and I knew then she was gone.”
Pyles wanted the court to know that his mom was a simple person with a big heart. She worked very hard to raise him and his sister alone.
“She pretty much sacrificed herself so that I was able to live,” said Pyles.
Jeffrey Pyles' wife Deborah was called to stand to testify to the impact that the shootings have had on her family.
She said she believed that Pruitt was a healthy woman who took care of herself and she would have lived for many more years. She stated that she wanted Marshall to spend the rest of his life in prison.
“Jane doesn’t have her life anymore, my kids don’t have their grandma and my husband doesn’t have his mother," Deborah Pyles said.
District Attorney Yates asked the court that the maximum sentence allowed be given to Marshall. “There is nothing to excuse this crime in any way,” Yates said. He reminded the court that the gun that killed Pruitt and critically wound Pyles was not an automatic weapon. “He had to cock the pistol and pull the trigger every time he shot,” said Yates.
Defense attorneys David White and Jody Mitchell offered what they considered mitigating factors in the commission of the crimes admitted to. They stated that Marshall has any IQ of only 84 and a psychologist determined he was suffering from the initial stages of dementia.
“The first thing Marshall will tell you is how much he misses Jane,” said Mitchell.
The defense also suggested that Pruitt changed after a hysterectomy and alleged several actions that pushed Marshall to snap.
During the defense’s statement, members of Pruitt’s family looked at one another and several shook their heads at the allegations being made.
The defense did admit that Marshall knew the difference between right and wrong the night he shot Pruitt and Pyles, but offered stress and anxiety as mitigating factors in the shooting.
Marshall had no prior record and suffers from heart disease. His attorney’s said when faced with losing half of what he’d worked his entire life for, that he snapped.
“I go to bed every night thinking of Jane Pruitt and I wake up every morning thinking of Jane Pruitt," said Marshall in a prepared statement read by one of his attorneys.
Pruitt, known as “Nelie” or “Jane”, was remembered as a hard-working, quiet woman who loved her family above all else. She enjoyed her horses and her dogs and thrilled at working in her flowers. She worked for many years as an in-home aide and was known to constantly go above and beyond the call of duty for the elderly people she wanted to help. “She had a hard life,” Jeffrey Pyles said. “but she loved us and her grandkids more than anything. She’d want us to go on now and that’s what we’re going to try to do...I’ll always miss her."
Post a Comment
