CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- An admitted alcoholic will spend the next five and a half months in prison for hitting a 22-year-old man with his car and leaving him to die.

Michael Petrone pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and felony hit-and-run.

He said he didn't know he struck Patrick Gay on Catawba Avenue a year ago. Gay had just moved to the Charlotte area two months earlier for a new job.

More than a dozen of Gay's relatives drove 300 miles from Virginia to attend Thursday’s plea hearing. Many said they pray for Petrone to clean up his life after he gets out of prison.

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