Editor's note: This article was published on Feb. 11, 2020.
Steven Jones was sentenced to six years in prison for shooting and killing a fellow student and wounding several others near the Northern Arizona University campus in 2015.
Jones received the sentence on Tuesday in Coconino County Superior Court. He could have been sentenced up to 10 years.
Jones pleaded guilty in January to substantially reduced charges of manslaughter and three counts of aggravated assault.
Police arrested the NAU freshman in October 2015 after he fired his gun into a crowd of students after an argument at a party.
Colin Brough, 20, died in the shooting. Nicholas Prato, Kyle Zientek and Nicholas Piring were injured.
During his trial, Jones claimed self-defense and told the jury he warned the crowd to stay back, only firing when they were close.
SENTENCING LIVESTREAM: Part one | Part two | Part three
But prosecutors challenged that, saying the victims were 90 feet away when Jones fired.
Jones took the stand during a trial that included 37 witnesses and multiple requests for a mistrial.
The jury deliberated for five days before telling the judge they were deadlocked.
The judge declared a mistrial and prosecutors said they would retry Jones.
For the next two years, defense attorneys continued to push the trial back until December 2019.
That's when prosecutors announced they were reducing the charges to second-degree murder.
Weeks after that, Jones agreed to a plea deal of one count of manslaughter and three counts of aggravated assault.