Killer sentenced to 25 years

PANAMA CITY A Panama City Beach man who gunned down his former landlord on church property accepted a plea deal Thursday to 25 years in prison after learning his taped confession would be played for jurors during his forthcoming trial.

Christopher Ray Hyler, 50, accepted the plea deal, reducing the first-degree murder charges he faced after being arrested in May 2013. Hyler was scheduled for trial next week for the shooting death of 43-year-old Robert S. Ellison in August 2010 on a Panama City Beach church construction site. However, after a circuit court judges decision to allow prospective jurors to view a taped confession made at the time of his arrest, Hyler pleaded no contest Thursday to charges of second-degree murder.

Judge Brantley Clark then sentenced Hyler to 25 years in prison.

Ellisons death lingered without an arrest for nearly three years before, in May 2013, authorities elicited a confession from Hyler during a taped interrogation.

Hyler was brought in after investigators began to look at previous tenants of properties owned by Ellison. After about an hour and a half of questioning, Hyler told investigators hed gone to the First Baptist Church in Panama City Beach construction site, at 204 Cobb Road, in search of work when Ellison aggressively approached him. Hyler pulled the 9mm Luger which hed brought to ask for a job and fired in self-defense, he told investigators.

The investigators then presented Hyler with the scenario that he confronted an abusive husband and pulled the gun out of self-defense. Hyler continued from there.

He told me that I needed to mind my business and came out from behind the desk. He looked pissed, Hyler told investigators. I pulled (the 9mm) in regards to thinking hed back up. He got his hand on it once.

At about 9 a.m. on Aug. 10, 2010, emergency crews discovered Ellison face down in the office with five gunshot wounds throughout his body.

Although no one distinctly saw Hyler leave the office, cellphone records would have been coupled with Hylers confession, court documents indicate.

Hyler attempted to have the video suppressed as the date of his trial neared. His legal counsel argued that after hours of intense questioning, he simply agreed to the facts presented by interrogators.

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Killer sentenced to 25 years