YORK COUNTY, Va. — A Yorktown man will serve fifteen years in state prison for a double shooting last July that injured his 4-year-old son and left a 44-year-old man dead.
Adrian Vonshae Pope, 35, was sentenced on Oct. 21 in York-Poquoson Circuit Court after he entered an Alford plea of guilty, according to state court records.
Pope's Alford plea allowed him to maintain his innocence, while acknowledging there may have been enough evidence to convict him on one count of second-degree murder and one count of felony child abuse. In exchange for Pope's plea, prosecutors agreed to a fifteen-year prison sentence and moved to withdraw eight other felony counts in the case.
According to an arrest affidavit, Pope admitted to responding deputies that he shot 44-year-old Floyd Lee James Jr. at the small trailer park located in the 2900 block of George Washington Memorial Highway.
Pope was detained for questioning and explained that his child's mother brought James, who he described as her new boyfriend, along with her for a custody exchange at Pope's home, the affidavit said.
Pope told deputies when they arrived for the exchange, James asked to speak with him. At that point, a verbal dispute began and quickly turned into a physical fight between the two men. After he broke free from the struggle, Pope said he ran to his truck, grabbed his gun and started shooting James, but was unaware that one of his own children was in the line of fire. Pope's four-year-old son suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the leg.
Eyewitnesses told deputies they saw the two men arguing and fighting, and then they saw Pope grab a gun from his truck and shoot James multiple times. Afterward, witnesses reported hearing Pope apologizing to James for shooting him. James was rushed to a local hospital but was pronounced dead minutes later.
Krystyn L. Reid, Commonwealth's Attorney for York County and Poquoson, provided a brief statement on the outcome to News 3. “After careful consultation with the victim’s family, we felt that this was a fair resolution of the charges and that justice has been achieved," Reid said.
Pope's attorney, Cherie N. Harris, declined to comment on the case when reached by News 3.
Pope remains behind bars at Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail awaiting transfer to a Virginia Department of Corrections facility, where he'll serve out his sentence.
