E’Town Man Sentenced to 35 Years for Killing

Joshua Hines heads to prison for at least 30 years for the killing of his neigh­bor in Eliz­a­beth­town. The 24 year old says the day he killed her last year, he had been plan­ning on killing him­self. He says he went to a neighbor’s house to ask her to call an ambu­lance to get his body. The gun he was going to use fell from his waist­band and Toni Bal­lard let out a scream. That’s when Hines says he pan­icked and shot her. Dur­ing his trial, doc­tors work­ing for the pros­e­cu­tion said that he suf­fers from a men­tal dis­or­der, but he was found fit to stand trial. The News Enter­prise says he’s been sen­tenced to 35 years, and has to serve at least 85 per­cent of that before he comes up for parole.