A man will almost assuredly spend the rest of his life in prison for shooting his girlfriend and then leaving her to die in a roadside ditch.

Joshua McGee, 39, was sentenced to 65 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for murdering his girlfriend, 37-year-old Ashley Tankersley, in 2021. A Peoria County jury found McGee guilty in August of first-degree murder and the unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon, the Peoria County State's Attorney's Office announced .

Fifty-five of the years are for the murder charge and 10 years are for the weapons charge, with McGee legally needing to serve the entire murder sentence, Illinois 10th Judicial Circuit Court Chief Judge Katherine Gorman said.

On Aug. 22, 2021, before 1 a.m., McGee shot Tankersley "and left her to die in a roadside d

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