YORK, Pa. -- Six white men who admitted their roles in the race-riot shooting of a black preacher's daughter here more than 33 years ago received sentences yesterday of up to three years in prison.
The sentencing followed an emotional, five-hour hearing during which relatives of Lillie Belle Allen, who was shot to death during the July 1969 riot, faced the defendants and grilled each about his involvement in the killing. They also asked why the six men had not more fully apologized and questioned the sincerity of regrets offered only during plea hearings and yesterday's sentencing.
"It would have meant so much to us if you had just said, 'It was a terrible thing, a horrible thing, and I'm so sorry,'" Allen's daughter, Debra Taylor, told Arthur N. "Artie" Messersmith, who admitted shooting at the car in which Allen had been riding when her family strayed into a hostile white neighborhood at the height of the 1969 riots.
"It would have meant so much more than if you'd done life [in prison]. Today I don't believe you," she said, adding that Messersmith and the others apologized only when they were willing to "do just about anything" to avoid long prison terms.
Messersmith received the harshest sentence -- 18 months to three years in prison -- after pleading guilty to felony attempted murder and to misdemeanor conspiracy. He faced up to nine years behind bars.
Rick L. Knouse, William C. "Sam" Ritter and Clarence "Sonny" Lutzinger -- all of whom admitted firing at Allen's car -- were sentenced to nine months to 23 1/2 months in jail.
Chauncey C. Gladfelter and Thomas P. Smith, who served as lookouts for the gang members but who did not shoot at the 27-year-old mother of two or her family's Cadillac, received sentences of three months to 23 1/2 months in jail.
Under the 1969 penal codes, the conspiracy charges to which all six men pleaded guilty carried a penalty of up to two years in prison.
Speaking to the defendants, Taylor, 44, of Aiken, S.C., expressed disbelief that the men faced such light sentences and outrage at what she described as their cavalier attitude toward her mother's death.
"You could get more time for stealing, for shoplifting, and to this day, you're still trying to get out of it," she said. "You didn't run into a tree. You didn't run over a dog. A woman, a mother, a sister is gone, and you guys still have your lives."
Attorneys for the six defendants asked the judge for leniency, pointing out drug addictions, childhood abuse and recent employment histories.
One called a former YMCA youth counselor to attest to his client's reputation in 1969 as a "happy-go-lucky" teen-ager and "jovial ... class clown." Another noted the time delay, saying Messersmith was "a 49-year-old man pleading guilty to the actions of a 16-year-old boy."
And other lawyers told the judge that part of the blame for Allen's death should be shifted to police officers and older gang members who incited the young men to kill blacks. "He was a rudderless boat adrift in this sea of racial conflict," John Moran said of Knouse.
But Uhler rejected the pleas for probation, noting the "extraordinarily serious" charge, the "alarming" ambush-style murder and the need to hold each man accountable. He tacked 200 hours of community service onto the sentences of Gladfelter, Knouse, Ritter and Smith and ordered Gladfelter, Ritter and Smith to pay $500.
All six men must pay a portion of the prosecution costs in the case, which was reopened in 1999 after local newspapers published articles marking the 30th anniversary of the riots.
A jury convicted two other men last month of second-degree murder. Robert N. Messersmith, the older brother of Arthur Messersmith, and Gregory H. Neff face up to 20 years in prison when they are sentenced in December.
Jurors acquitted former Mayor Charlie Robertson of charges that the then-police officer handed out ammunition and encouraged the gangs to kill blacks. A 10th suspect will be tried separately.