Woman who strangled friend wants leniency

Published August 3, 2007 4:00am ET



The Columbia woman who strangled her friend to death in 2005 was trembling as she asked a three-judge panel to lighten her prison term Thursday.

“I can?t explain to anyone why I made the choices I made that night,” said Melissa Burch Harton, 27, who was sentenced in April 2006 to 10 years for manslaughter after killing her friend Natasha Bacchus, of Stewartstown, Pa., in a drunken fight.

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