PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) - A Florida Panhandle teen has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for fatally shooting his 10-year-old sister.
The Panama City News Herald (https://goo.gl/jazvG7 ) reports that the 16-year-old boy was sentenced Tuesday after pleading no contest to first-degree murder.
Authorities say Izabella Heffernan was found dead in a field near her family's Bay County home last February with gunshot wounds to her chest and cheek. The body had been cleaned and moved to an abandoned bus.
The teen initially claimed he mistook his sister for a deer but then said he mistakenly shot her while trying to hit an attacker. He finally told authorities that he accidentally shot the girl in the chest while teaching her to use the rifle and then shot her in the head to end her suffering.
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Information from: The (Panama City, Fla.) News Herald, http://www.newsherald.com
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