Man Enters Plea To Lesser Charge

{Charleston, West Virginia}…John Edward Hudson, 38, of Ashford, in Boone Couty, entered a Kennedy-Frazier plea Monday to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter after being charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of 39 year old Michelle Lynn Gillespie. Hudson admitted to shooting Gillespie in the head, killing her inside a home on Shorty Road in Winifrede in January. Hudson, who had been staying with Gillespie and her boyfriend, stole her car and several items from her home after the shooting and fled but later turned himself in to police. Hudson was convicted in 1999 of aiding and abetting the distribution of methamphetamine. He served a five-year, nine-month sentence and spent an additional five years on probation. In exchange for his plea, the state secured a letter from the federal prosecutor's office that it would not seek to charge Hudson for being a felon in possession of a firearm, but Kanawha Circuit Judge Tod Kaufman said a federal or a state grand jury could still possibly bring charges against him. He faces up to 8 to 20 years in prison when sentenced in February.