st. LOUIS (AP) — When the man who shot dead the former star of the St. Louis-based reality show Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s was sentenced to 32 years in prison, his relatives stood up.
“How can I sleep?” Kalyn Griggs asked Travell Anthony Hill. “Was it worth $5,000?”
Through his petition in June, Hill admitted to colluding with Montgomery’s uncle, James “Tim” Norman, who was the sole beneficiary of an insurance policy worth up to $450,000 against the life of his 21-year-old nephew. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he instructed a friend to pay Hill $5,000 in cash after the murder.
Montgomery and Norman appeared on “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s,” a long-running OWN reality show about family soul food businesses in the St. Louis area.
“We’re not perfect. We’re never going back,” Montgomery’s brother Darren Griggs told the court. “Andre still had a lot of life left.”
Hill apologized to Montgomery’s family at the hearing and asked U.S. District Judge John Ross for leniency. He said he was killed.
He insisted he didn’t kill for money, but to “protect himself”. He said he has a son whom he has not been able to see in person because he is incarcerated.
“I’ve been dead since the day of the murder,” Hill said. “I apologize to everyone in the court.”
The recommended sentencing for the charges was life imprisonment, but because of Hill’s cooperation with the authorities, the prosecution and defense were calling for 30 years in prison.
He testified last month against Norman, who is due to be sentenced in March after being convicted on two counts of murder for hire and wire and mail fraud.
Another co-conspirator, Terrika Ellis, is expected to be sentenced in January after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in July. She admitted to luring Montgomery out on the street the night of her murder and telling Hill of his whereabouts.
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