Guilty plea, emotional testimony in Fuquay-Varina's woman's death

Logan Connail McLean, 23, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Puryear's shooting death in their shared Fuquay-Varina home. He and his attorneys had little to say during Monday's hearing and stipulated to the description of the crime delivered by the prosecutors.

Then Puryear's family stood, one by one, to share memories of an athletic, hard-working, loving young woman and a new mother. They expressed guilt and regret, saying they learned only after her death of the degree of abuse she suffered at McLean's hands.

Puryear's parents, who are raising her son, both testified through tears.

"Since the moment this happened to you, "I've had the most unexplainable pain," Shelly Puryear said in reading a letter to her daughter. "I've felt like I'm living in a nightmare."

McLean and Puryear dated for about four years before her death, and they had an infant son.

"The defendant robbed his son of ever knowing how his own mother loved him," Puryear's grandfather said.

“He was stripped of ever knowing his mother or his father. I will love him and take care of him best I can,” Shelly Puryear read from the letter. “One day he will find out the truth of what happened to you and he will feel the same pain and suffering that I do for the loss of his mother.”

Britny Puryear’s father, Stephen Puryear, talked about his guilt.

“I feel pain, sadness, guilt, anger loss, heartache and sorrow every moment of every day,” he said. “I hurt so bad for not being able to protect my daughter. Britny was our only daughter and now she’s gone.”

"Unfortunately, there is no punishment that I could impose that would fit your conduct," Wake County Superior Court Judge A. Graham Shirley II told McLean before sentencing him to 32 years in prison.

"Your honor, I ask that you keep this monster in prison for as long as possible," Stephen Puryear asked, before turning to McLean and saying, "I hope I am still alive when you get out."

McLean reported Puryear's death in a 911 call Nov. 6, 2014. He told emergency dispatchers that the shooting was accidental, and that he then threw the gun away along some railroad tracks.

At the time of Puryear's death, McLean was on probation for a drug charge and was not legally supposed to have a gun.