DETROIT -- A father whose daughter found a loaded shotgun in his unlocked bedroom closet and fatally shot her brother was found not guilty of second-degree murder last week.

But Christopher Head, 45, of Detroit, was convicted of manslaughter, and could serve up to 15 years on that charge alone. As a fourth-offense habitual felon, he could face an even lengthier prison sentence.

Head was also found guilty of negligent manslaughter, second-degree child abuse, being a felon in possession of a firearm, possessing a short-barreled shotgun and felony firearm.

His attorney, Byron Pitts, said the verdict reinforces what he's previously said, that the second-degree murder count filed by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy's office is an example of "improper" overcharging.

Pitts said the verdict shows the jury agreed.

Head's daughter, now 11, took the stand during the brief but emotional two-day trial last week.

The girl, whom MLive isn't naming because she's a minor, admitted to shooting her 9-year-old brother, Daylen M. Head, after finding a loaded shotgun in her father's closet Nov. 9.

The gun was located feet from the video game console at the foot Head's bed.

The girl testified: Dad "told me to go upstairs and do my hair because he was trying to take care of some business."

Upstairs, she found Daylen playing "a shooting game" in her father's bedroom.

"I went back in the room to check on him," she said. " ... And I went in my dad's room and I stand there. I say, 'Can I play?'

"He said, 'Yeah,' and so it was still his turn, and I said, 'Do you want to act it out?'"

"So I went in the closet to get the gun," Head's daughter said. "And he's standing up and I start waving the gun up and down, and then it jerked down, and then I tried to, like, pull it up and the gun went off."

The father went to great lengths to try and keep his daughter from having to testify about the tragedy, Pitts said.

He previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and the other charges with the hope that his daughter would not be forced to testify publicly about killing her brother.

The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office agreed to the deal, which called for Head to serve a maximum of six years in prison, but Wayne Circuit Judge Dana Hathaway threw out the plea deal and ruled the case would have to go to trial.

Pitts said he has some theories about why the deal was scratched at the last minute but declined to speculate publicly.

"I think it was wrong to charge him and to subject this child to this kind of environment," Pitts said last week. "She's a child. She feels horrible about what happened. To only pile onto this child's psyche, I think is just deplorable."

Hathaway is scheduled to sentence Head at 9 a.m. July 21.

Head pleaded no contest to extortion and aggravated stalking and had an arson charge dismissed in 2006, according to Wayne County online records. He was found guilty of illegally carrying a concealed pistol in 1989 and cocaine possession in 1994.