Man charged with killing three family members pleads guilty

A man charged with killing his wife, stepdaughter and infant son while on parole for another murder has pleaded guilty.

The guilty plea prevented Tony Harold Pope, 37, from being sentenced to death. Instead he was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the deaths of 36-year-old Andrea Pope, 5-week-old Christian and 13-year-old Brianna Justice Moody.

District Attorney Bill Cox said he was approached Wednesday about a possible plea deal, but discussed it with family members of the victims and law enforcement officials before accepting it.

“The advantage of the plea is that the defendant will spend the rest of his life in the penitentiary, and that sentence is a certainty,” he said. “Though he is eligible for the death penalty, whether or not he would have received it is uncertain.”

The plea agreement also eliminates the chance that Pope would have been convicted of a lesser offense than first-degree murder. There will be no opportunity for him to appeal.

Pope was freed from prison in 2001 after serving five years of a 15-year sentence in the beating death of a girlfriend with an iron skillet.

At a preliminary hearing in May 2005, investigators said Pope had told them marital problems prompted the killings at the family’s duplex apartment.

Detective James Tate testified at that hearing that after Pope was arrested he told investigators he struck Andrea Pope in the head several times with a hammer in a laundry room at the back of their apartment.

Tate said Pope told investigators that Brianna ran screaming to her bedroom and slammed the door in his face. Pope followed, told her to “shut up,” grabbed her throat and choked her, the detective said. An autopsy report also showed chest bruises, possibly from stomping.

Tate said Christian was in a crib and Pope said he “told Christian he loved him and said he kissed him and told him he would be better off in heaven. He (Pope) said he dropped him and he hit his head on the floor.”

Tate said Pope told investigators Christian “just wouldn’t go” and he punched the baby twice in the chest.