A plea deal on Monday finally ended the case of a home invasion, robbery, arson and murder that left a Lake Gaston preacher injured and his wife dead.
Kevin Munn pleaded guilty within months of the March 2018 attack on John and Dr. Nancy Alford.
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Nancy Alford was kidnapped from her home on Mulberry Court in Littleton and forced to withdraw money from an ATM. The suspects drove back to the house on Lake Gaston, beat up John Alford and tied the couple up before setting the home on fire.
Munn pleaded guilty in connection with the Alford case and with the October 2017 death of Tommy Ellington in his Vance County home.
In exchange for his testimony against his accomplice, Lester Kearney, he was promised a sentence that would allow him to avoid the death penalty.
But when the time came for Kearney's trial, Munn was unavailable. He had overdosed in jail and was hospitalized throughout Kearney's trial.
That voided his original plea, and Munn was never sentenced for his role in Alford and Ellington's deaths.
On Monday, that saga was finally put to bed.
Munn's attorneys formally entered his guilty plea to the two murders, and he was sentenced to two life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Kearney was tried in 2022 in connection with the Alford case, but the jury could not reach the unanimous verdict required and the judge declared a mistrial.
Before he could be re-tried, Kearney agreed to an Alford plea, which allows him to maintain his innocence but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him. Instead of taking a chance in front of a jury, where a guilty verdict could mean the death penalty, Kearney agreed to a 13-year prison sentence.