Virginia Mans Pleads Guilty to Killing 8, Shooting Chopper

A Virginia man charged with killing eight people, including his sister and her family, at his Appomattox home in January 2010 pleaded guilty Friday.

Christopher Speight, a former security guard from Appomattox, pleaded guilty to three counts of capital murder, one count of attempted capital murder of a police officer and five firearms counts in Appomattox County Circuit Court.

The judge in addition to the five life sentences added on 18 years.

Speight said he had shot his sister, her husband, their two children, two neighbors, their teenage daughter and a teenage boy, most of them he had shot from a tree house.

During the 18-hour manhunt he also shot at a state police helicopter, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing.

According to court records, investigators seized several military-style assault rifles, a 9mm pistol, multiple rounds of ammunition and more than 40 homemade bombs from Speight's home.

Speight was convinced his sister, Lauralee Sipe, was plotting to kick him out of the house they inherited after their mother died in 2006. Family members and others who knew Speight said she had no such plans and that he had a history of mental problems.

Speight told investigators that an Egyptian goddess named Jennifer ordered him to shoot his family because they were possessed by demons.

A judge sent Speight to a state mental hospital five months after the shootings, for treatment as he was initially diagnosed to be too ill to stand trial.

The victim's families addressed the court after Speight entered his plea.

"Christopher Speight, you look at me!" demanded a tearful Kim Scruggs, whose 16-year-old son Bo was among the victims. "You were a coward up there that day when you shot my son in the back, running for his life. May God have mercy on your soul."