NATCHEZ — An Adams County man was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday in connection with a 2015 shooting characterized as a drug-deal turned murder.

Circuit Court Judge Forrest “Al” Johnson sentenced Kelsey Michael Watson, 20, 118 Brookfield Drive, to 25 years for a guilty plea of second-degree murder in connection with the October 2015 death of Clifford Barnes.

The minimum sentence was 20 years and the maximum 40.

Watson is one of four men who have entered pleas in connection with this 2015 incident, but the other three pleaded to conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

Chadrich Akeem Watson, 23, and Darnell D. Stevenson, 18, were sentenced earlier this month to serve the maximum of 5 years in prison for their pleas.

The fourth man, Darryl Keith Hurts Jr., 19, will be sentenced at a later date. Hurts faces additional charges.

Barnes, who died shortly after being shot several times, was found in his wrecked Toyota Camry in a ditch on Kings Circle.

A woman, pregnant at the time of the incident, was found alive in the vehicle. She had been shot in the back but survived.

The masked subjects allegedly tried to rob the victims prior to the shooting.

Kelsey Watson was also shot in the back, and he spoke about that as he asked for forgiveness from the family and mercy from Judge Johnson.

“It is hard on me, too, like it is hard on y’all,” Watson said. “I was shot that night, too, you feel me? I can’t take none of that back.”

Watson said as he was lying in the hospital bed for more than a month, doctors were surprised he survived. Watson said he believed he was supposed to die but through God he lived.

“Y’all are a strong family, just like mine,” Watson said. “I pray for y’all just like I pray for mine. I was one of the four that night. I can’t take nothing back. I just apologize for all the tragedy that has happened.”

Watson’s parents, Monte Clark and Kyla Watson, also spoke on behalf of their son. Kyla Watson said Kelsey Watson always helped her with her younger children and he was never a disrespectful child.

“Please dig down deep in your hearts and forgive my child,” Kyla Watson said. “He was in the midst of all of these things. I don’t know what happened. You don’t know what happened. I ask you all to forgive him.”

Sophronia Hall Hughes, the aunt of the then-pregnant woman who was shot, said the little girl who was born four months later would never know her father, Barnes.

“(The little girl) will never know her father and will have to depend on pictures and others to make sure she knows him,” Hughes said. “(The girl’s siblings) can tell her stories about her daddy, but that can never take the place of knowing what a great daddy he was going to be to her and for her to experience his bubbly, bright smile while holding her and making her feel safe.”

Though Barnes was not the biological father of his girlfriend’s other two children, Hughes said Barnes and her niece had been dating for many years and he was their surrogate father.

“Her son asked his then 11-year-old cousin, why did they have to kill Bugg (Barnes),” Hughes said. “He still talks about activities Bugg did with him and what Bugg taught him about cooking or fixing things around the home. He wears Bugg’s flip flops because they were Bugg’s.”

Hughes said October 2015 was tough for the family, but March 2017 made the ordeal worse when the family heard rumors someone was trying to kill Barnes’ girlfriend to keep her from testifying.

“Thank God we will never know if the threat was real,” she said. “What we do know is that it was real to us. It made us all cry as we constantly watched our surroundings and changed our daily routines.”

Johnson said after listening to Kelsey Watson’s parents, it was obvious Watson had good parents.

“I don’t know what happened, but when you get out there and mix illegal drugs, greed and guns in the hands of people who have no reason of having guns, people who have no respect for life, these tragedies occur,” Johnson said.

“One person is deceased. Another woman was shot and survived. And you,” Johnson said to Watson. “Look what you have done to your mother and father.”

Johnson said it is a fallacy when people say a perpetrator committed a crime because they were not reared correctly.

“Everyone, you better know what your children are doing at night,” Johnson said. “If they are around people they are supposed to be around, these kind of things don’t happen. But if they are in the wrong place, with the wrong people, you can’t be shocked when something like this happens.

“This has to stop. Parents, know where your young people are.”