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Zelanko sentenced in father’s death

Broad Top woman pleaded guilty to fatal shooting

BEDFORD — A Bedford County judge sentenced Christy Ann Zelanko on Friday to at least 18 years in prison for shooting her father as he slept in July 2015.

Judge Travis Livengood issued the sentence two months after Zelanko, 50, of Broad Top Township, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the death of 68-year-old James Albert Zelanko.

Her maximum sentence is 40 years.

Zelanko asked Livengood to repeat the sentence, then cried as he explained she would remain in jail for close to the maximum possible time. Friends and family called out, “We love you, Christy,” as deputies led her from the courtroom.

“Whatever happened that night, I have no recollection of it,” Zelanko told Livengood during the hearing. “I take full responsibility because I realize my dad is gone. … It’s just been a horrid nightmare.”

Zelanko shot her father repeatedly with a .380-caliber revolver after walking a short distance from her house to his.

The shooting followed a phone conversation with her mother, Gail Zelanko, in which her mother detailed years of alleged abuse at James Zelanko’s hands.

Livengood said he remains uncertain why the shooting truly happened: The abuse had allegedly ended years before, and Zelanko said she had established a fairly close relationship with her father before the shooting.

While police said Zelanko had drank some alcohol that night and was using medication, there’s no clear indication that the substances in her system were a major factor, Livengood said. She had almost no criminal record and no known propensity for violence.

“To call this case baffling, to me, is probably an understatement,” Livengood said. “I’m not convinced as to why this happened.”

Loved ones took turns addressing Livengood to seek a short sentence; others had written him letters. In a family doubly affected by the shooting — a father dead and a daughter imprisoned — many stressed that they didn’t want to see her locked away for much of her life.

Livengood said every message expressed forgiveness, and some expressly asked that Zelanko be freed immediately.

“I just want you to have mercy on my daughter,” Gail Zelanko said. “She’s a good person.”

Christy Zelanko’s attorney, Robert S. Donaldson of Hollidaysburg, asked that she be freed early so the family’s healing could continue. Zelanko herself asked to be freed largely so she could resume her role as a leader in a family frayed by the crime.

District Attorney Bill Higgins asked for the maximum sentence of 20 years before a shot at parole. Higgins noted that the plea deal — which saw Zelanko convicted of third-degree murder instead of premeditated first-degree murder — was justified, but said any more reduction in her sentence would be too much.

“I don’t think life without parole is an appropriate sentence in this case. I think 20 to 40 (years) is,” Higgins said.

Under Livengood’s sentence, Zelanko will be up for parole in 18 years and will stay in prison no more than 40. Despite her tearful response to the sentence, Zelanko had said she would accept whatever the judge decided.

“The fact that he’s never going to be here still hasn’t struck me. I don’t know if it ever will,” she said of her father. “I’d just like my family to have some peace. … If I could take their memory, I would in a heartbeat.”

Mirror Staff Writer Ryan Brown is at 946-7457.

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