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BELLEFONTE — A Centre County man who tried to shoot a deer on the crest of a hill but instead shot his older neighbor in the head lost his bid Friday to stay out of jail.
Michael Lloyd, 41, of College Township was sentenced by Centre County President Judge Jonathan Grine to three to 23½ months in the Centre County Correctional Facility. He’s scheduled to report June 12.
His hunting license was revoked for five years. Lloyd was also ordered to pay more than $29,000 in restitution, a total that could increase as the man he shot receives more treatment.
Centre County Assistant District Attorney Josh Andrews said the 83-year-old man’s life has “forever and substantially changed.”
“So much of what has given his life meaning and joy has been taken from him,” Andrews said. “It was a risk that Mr. Lloyd knew he was taking.”
The man offered detailed testimony Friday from the witness stand, a place he walked to with the assistance of a cane he did not need before he was shot.
A man once in excellent health — he was a competitive weightlifter, cyclist and hiked Mount Nittany two to three times per week — now wears prescription glasses and hearing aids.
His medications include blood thinners. Hallucinations and bouts of vertigo aren’t uncommon. His memory isn’t as strong as it once was, he said.
His wife said her husband has been “reduced to a shadow of his former self.” His balance is worse and he’s become more forgetful, she said.
“It is a daily strain to cope with all of these changes,” she said.
Added their daughter: “Mom has taken over more and more of the logistics of daily life. Her golden years of enjoying retirement were abruptly shortened.”
A friend who has known the man for more than four decades choked back tears as he spoke. He described the shooting as “unbelievably irresponsible behavior.”
Lloyd spotted a deer as he returned from a December 2021 hunting trip, State College police wrote in an affidavit of probable cause. He stopped at the bottom of his neighbor’s driveway and fired at least two shots from a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun.
Instead of finding the deer, Lloyd found his neighbor bleeding in the driveway. He provided aid and called 911. Lloyd was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
He estimated the deer was 10-15 yards away. Heavy brush behind the area where Lloyd said the deer was made the rest of the driveway difficult to see, police wrote. His neighbor was found about 140 yards from where investigators found shell casings.
Lloyd pleaded guilty in February to one misdemeanor count of recklessly endangering another person and one summary count of unlawfully taking or possessing game. Five charges were dropped.
“In preparation for this case, Your Honor, I took a hunter safety course and literally Day 1 the thing that they teach you is you don’t shoot uphill and you don’t shoot when you don’t know what’s downrange if there’s no backstop for your bullet,” Andrews said. “It is the most commonsense hunter safety guideline and — in the heat of that moment — Mr. Lloyd ignored that.”
Defense lawyer Brian Manchester — who pushed for Lloyd to be sentenced to two years of probation — described the shooting as a “physics fluke.” Lloyd is a father and works as a self-employed contractor, he said.
Lloyd apologized multiple times before his sentence was handed down. He said he sought help after the shooting, including a stay at an inpatient psychiatric hospital and monthly meetings with a counselor.
Lloyd said he “can’t even imagine the thought of ever hunting again.” He no longer owns firearms after he gave them to members of his family.
“It was a terrible, terrible mistake and I wish every day I could take it back. I wish every day I could just not have stepped out of that truck and just kept driving,” Lloyd said. “… I’m just really, really sorry that this happened. If I could take it back, I would give everything I have.”
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