Jury recommends 31 years in FOP lodge slaying

Finding he acted without malice in the Fraternal Order of Police lodge slaying last year, jurors convicted Gregory Lee Kittrell of second-degree murder Thursday.

Kittrell had been charged with first-degree murder, which could have brought a possible lifetime prison term. Instead, he likely will be sentenced to a 31-year term in April for the murder of Brian Patterson.

At the end of two days of testimony in Lynchburg Circuit Court, deliberations began Wednesday evening and resumed Thursday. Jurors took about 2½ hours to reach a verdict and an hour to recommend a sentence.

“I honestly regret the day ever came,” Kittrell said during the sentencing phase of the trial Thursday. “I wish I could go back in time and change things.”

Kittrell, 22, and Patterson, 21, went to school together at Heritage High School, but weren’t friends, according to testimony.

Kittrell apologized to Patterson’s family, his family, those at the party and the city’s residents.

He also apologized to Walter Carpenter, who was shot in the hand while trying to break up what started as a fistfight.

Kittrell was charged with aggravated malicious wounding in the shooting of Carpenter. Like first-degree murder, the charge carries a possibility of life in prison. Jurors found him guilty of the lesser charge of unlawful wounding — an option when jurors find the crime was committed without malice — which carries a maximum term of five years in prison.

As a consequence, the jury found him not guilty of use of a firearm in commission of aggravated malicious wounding, shaving an additional three-year mandatory minimum sentence from his term.

Mary Patterson, Brian’s mother, testified Thursday about the loss of her son, who lived with her and her 4-year-old daughter, Miracle.

“He used to dress her, do her hair while I was at work, take her and do things with her,” she testified. “I miss him, but I have to move on. I cry, but I try not to. I try to be strong for Miracle. She tells me he’s gone to heaven, and it makes me strong.”

Kittrell testified Wednesday he bumped into Brian Patterson at the party at the FOP lodge and the two started mouthing off to each other. Kittrell said Patterson punched him in the face and then put him in a headlock. Kittrell said he thought he felt others punching him, but conceded some of the contact could have come from people trying to split them apart.

He testified he carried a pistol bought for him by his sister, and that he shot the gun in self-defense that night. The beating, he testified, brought back memories of one he suffered when he was 17 that cost him the use of his right eye.

Witnesses testified Kittrell fired nine shots. Five struck Patterson.

“This could have been a double, a triple homicide case,” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Joseph Lee said during the sentencing hearing.

Kittrell’s family and friends testified they were shocked by what aunt Tashawna Kittrell called uncharacteristic behavior.

“He was quiet,” friend Corey Calloway testified. “He pretty much knew everybody. Teachers loved him.”

Altogether, jurors recommended a sentence of 18 years for second-degree murder, five years for shooting in an occupied building, three years each on convictions of use of a firearm in the commission of a murder and the unlawful wounding of Carpenter, and two years for carrying a concealed weapon.

Judge Mosby Perrow will have a final say in the sentence at a hearing set for April 13.

The case is the first of Lynchburg’s four homicides from 2011 to come to trial.

Dennis Watts Jr., 20, is set for a hearing March 5 in the April slaying of Timothy Irving, 18, at the Mill Wood Apartments. Co-defendant Raheem Johnson, 18, is set for a July 16 trial. Lakita Miller, 26, is set for a May 21 trial in the May slaying of Rodney Lee Philips, 28, at the Bramblewood Apartments.

No one has been charged in the August slaying of Jeffrey Rhoden, 41, in the White Rock Hill neighborhood.