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Woman tells her father’s killer she won’t let it stop her from living
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The daughter of a man shot to death in his home on Deerfield Street Northwest on Aug. 5 told his killer she is sad her father is gone — but “I’m going to still make him proud, and I’m going to still live my life.”
Brooke Pruitt spoke during the sentencing of David R. Blackmon Jr., 47, of a different Deerfield Avenue address. He pleaded guilty Wednesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to a reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter with a firearm in the death of Mitchell Pruitt, 50, and received a nine-year prison sentence.
Blackmon originally was charged with murder, which could have produced a life prison sentence.
Pruitt family members said Pruitt and Blackmon had known each other since they were boys. Family members said they thought the two were friends. They described Pruitt as a 15-year Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan and came home with a drug addiction.
“My children will never know their grandfather. I will not have someone to walk me down the aisle,” said Brooke Pruitt, one of Mitchell Pruitt’s daughters.
Mitchell Pruitt’s sister, Felicia Pruitt Davis, told Blackmon and Judge W. Wyatt McKay that her brother’s death “is the most horrifying experience in my life. I still have nightmares about my brother being shot down like a dog in the home we grew up in.”
Blackmon offered no comment or explanation during the hearing.
Warren police arrested Blackmon in October after talking to two people who said they were in the house at the time Blackmon shot Pruitt to death, said Mike Burnett, assistant county prosecutor.
They described Blackmon as having a gun and hearing gunshots, but neither witness said they saw the killing. Both were gone from the house when police arrived, and neither one knew what led up to the shooting, Burnett said.