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Michigan man sentenced to life for neighbour’s fatal shooting

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Wendell Popejoy, right, stands next to defense attorney Jeffrey Kortes during his sentencing at the Ottawa County Courthouse in Grand Haven, Mich., on Monday, Nov. 5, 2018. Popejoy was convicted of murder in the Dec. 26, 2017, killing of his neighbor, Sheila Bonge, in Crockery Township. Bonge was shot while she was snowblowing an easement that she, Popejoy and another neighbor used to get to their driveways. (Cory Morse/The Grand Rapids Press via AP)

CROCKERY TOWNSHIP, Mich. – A western Michigan man will spend the rest of his life in prison in the fatal shooting of a neighbour as she cleared snow near her home.

WOOD-TV reports that 64-year-old Wendell Popejoy was sentenced Monday. He was found guilty last month of first-degree murder.

Sheila Bonge (BON’-gee) was slain in December 2017 outside her Crockery Township home, northwest of Grand Rapids. Police say she was shot while using a snowblower on an easement that she and neighbours used to get to their driveways.

Members of her family found Bonge’s body under snowfall down a hill behind Popejoy’s house.

After his arrest, Popejoy told police that the 59-year-old Bonge was a “nuisance to the neighbourhood” and the killing was a “snap decision.”

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