A man who killed his wife in September could be ordered to spend 50 years in prison when he is sentenced next month.

Wiley Brown III, 27, pleaded guilty Friday to murder in Allen Superior Court. Police say he shot Courtney Brown, 24, to death during an early-morning argument in their New Haven home Sept. 20.

A plea agreement calls for him to spend 50 years of a 55-year sentence behind bars. A sentencing hearing is scheduled March 13.

His trial had been set to start next week.

Brown and his wife argued while their children, 2 and 5, slept, according to court documents. He grabbed her gun from a nearby closet, put it to his head and thought about killing himself, Brown told investigators.

He fired a shot into the floor, and his wife tried to take the gun from him. Brown fired twice more, striking Courtney once in the forehead, a probable cause affidavit alleged.

Brown called his father and asked him to pick up the children and take them away from the house. It's not clear whether the father knew what had happened.

After going to a friend's house and staying “two to three minutes,” court documents said, Brown drove to the New Haven Police Department and turned himself in about 2:30 a.m.

“I killed my wife,” he told an officer, according to the affidavit.

mleblanc@jg.net