MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — A North Carolina man convicted of the September 2012 fatal shooting of Purple Heart recipient Samson Edmond learns his fate Monday.
25-year-old Christopher Wyche faces life in prison under the state’s “three-strikes” rule.
Berkeley County Prosecuting Attorney Pamela Games-Neely argued that Wyke was the same person previously convicted of possession with intent to sell and deliver cocaine in 2009 and as an accessory after the fact to robbery with a dangerous weapon on 2010.
She says it will be up to the judge now.
“Whether he’s going to let them both go through as felonies, or whether he’s only going to let one go through because it’s a legal argument that we made,” she said. “Even though he was convicted on both, the judge may have to elect depending on how he reads that one statute.”
Games-Neely’s office also moved to have co-defendant Rashaun Boyd sentenced to life in prison because of his conviction in connection with Edmond’s death and prior convictions, but a complication with a felony conviction in North Carolina makes that impossible.
“Their statue looks like a felony when we bring it over because we don’t have a corresponding statute. It’s clearly a petit larceny,” she explained.
Games-Neely says Boyd could still see the doubling of one of his sentences.