On May 10, 2020, 29-year-old Charles Ryan Cottle of Parkersburg, West Virginia, was fatally shot at his family home on Broadway Avenue during a violent altercation with his brother, William Allen Nutter. Nutter, then 41 and living in the house with their mother Mae Cottle, was identified as the shooter. Mae Cottle testified that Nutter had been agitated, struck her, and she heard multiple shots as Nutter fired a pistol in the kitchen.

Nutter said he was attacked by Ryan, who was wielding a prybar, and that he took hold of his own Taurus 9mm and fired in self-defense. Prosecutors pointed to inconsistencies in that account; forensic evidence showed gunshot residue on Nutter and spent casings near Ryan’s body, while the defense noted Nutter’s claim that he felt his life was in danger. The jury declined to convict on first-degree murder and returned a lesser conviction; the case record provided no further specifics about that verdict.

Does anyone have additional firsthand details about what happened at 1324 Broadway Avenue that day?