High court refuses to hear appeal of deputy killer
The state Supreme Court Wednesday refused to hear an appeal from Jerod Green, seeking to overturn his 25-to-50-year sentence in the 2012 death of a Monongalia County sheriff’s deputy.
Green, 38, of Morgantown, W.Va., filed the appeal after the state Superior Court in August upheld the sentence and the third-degree murder conviction in the death of Sgt. Michael Todd May, 41.
A Greene County jury found May’s death was the direct result of his police vehicle being struck by Green’s pickup truck on Interstate 79 in Perry Township Feb. 18, 2012.
West Virginia sheriff’s deputies pursued Green after he fled from a traffic stop involving a hit-and-run accident that occurred earlier that same evening on Easton Hill Road in Monongalia County, W.Va., where Green’s truck struck a car driven by Skylar Johnson, 19, of Morgantown.
When police pulled Green over, he denied hitting Johnson’s vehicle and then admitted he was there but it was not his fault. When an officer reached inside Green’s truck to turn off the ignition, Green hit the gas and pulled off with the officer’s arm inside the window. Police began a pursuit of Green’s truck as it traveled north on Route 100, onto Route 19 north into Pennsylvania and then entered the Interstate 79 on-ramp at Mt. Morris.
It was just south of the on-ramp that Green’s truck collided with May’s marked police vehicle, a Jeep Grand Cherokee. May died as a result of injuries sustained from the impact.