Sep 10, 2002 By Jennifer Harr 2 min read

During his Monday plea bargain, Jeffrey Wayne Tarpley Jr. told a Fayette County judge he was going to marry the woman whose car he shot at last summer. “We got into an argument,” Tarpley told President Judge William J. Franks of why he shot at girlfriend Toni Renee Wingrove’s vehicle on June 29.

The shooting came after Tarpley followed Wingrove in a second vehicle from Hopwood to Route 51. At one point before the shooting, state police allege he pulled Wingrove from the car and punched her.

That bullet, according to police, almost hit the car’s gas tank.

On this case, and another, unrelated case, Tarpley will be sentenced to one and a half to three years under terms of the plea agreement. The time will run at the same time for both offenses.

Tarpley, 27, of 643 Coolspring St., Uniontown, had been charged with attempted homicide and aggravated assault for shooting at Wingrove’s car, but prosecutors dropped those charges in exchange for a plea to simple assault and reckless endangerment.

In the second case, Tarpley pleaded guilty to terroristic threats for threatening the life of David Daniel Johnson last June 10.

Police alleged that Tarpley pulled a gun on Johnson along the 2300 Block of Moyer Road in Bullskin Township around 5:30 p.m. following a verbal argument.

Both defense attorney Mark F. Morrison and Assistant District Attorney Phyllis A. Jin asked that part of the plea bargain include Tarpley being allowed to serve his time in the county prison. Sentences over two years generally mean the inmate is transferred to a state prison.

Morrison told Franks that Tarpley has already served nearly 16 months on the charges – only two months from the minimum time he needs for parole.

With the overcrowding problem in the county lock-up, Franks said he would only consider that option if the attorneys made the condition a part of the plea bargain. Jin and Morrison did so.