Dallas Acoff testifies during his 2016 murder trial in Ohio County Circuit Court. After he was granted a new trial, Acoff has pleaded guilty to attempted murder. File Photo

WHEELING — Dallas Acoff’s involvement in the 2015 murder of Lemroy Coleman took a new and apparent final legal turn Wednesday as he pleaded guilty to attempted murder.

Acoff had been set for a second trial in the case on Feb. 8.

Following the plea, Ohio County Circuit Judge David Sims sentenced Acoff to three to 15 years on the attempted murder charge. That sentence will run concurrent with Acoff’s three prior wanton endangerment convictions, each of which carried a five-year sentence.

Acoff’s involvement in Coleman’s murder has seen several twists. In 2016, a jury found Acoff guilty of second-degree murder in the case, and he received a life sentence.

Acoff remained adamant that he did not shoot and kill Coleman, and appealed his case to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The high court heard the case and ordered a retrial after Acoff’s attorney, Wheeling litigator Robert McCoid, was able to contact a witness willing to testify that Acoff was not the shooter.

That witness, Norman Banks, also was shot and injured during the same encounter in which Coleman was killed. McCoid successfully argued that prosecutors did not adequately pursue testimony from Banks, who was in Cleveland recovering from his gunshot wounds during Acoff’s trial.

Ohio County Prosecutor Scott Smith’s office had opposed the retrial, but the high court, by a 3-2 vote, ordered the new trial, calling Banks’ willingness to testify “extraordinary.”

“We find this case represents an extraordinary circumstance where a victim and eyewitness to a homicide, who did not testify at trial, subsequently offered testimony exonerating the defendant,” then-Chief Justice Margaret Workman said when the new trial was ordered. “The State listed Mr. Banks as a potential witness but, remarkably, he was not called to testify.”

Sims had chastised the prosecutor’s office for an apparent failure to assertively serve the subpoena to Banks.