The man Thomas Fluty killed had been his good friend - his fishing buddy, he told a judge.
Their children grew up together and Fluty had even helped Benny Anderson bury his mom and dad, he said Monday.
"I just wanted to get him off me. . . . He grabbed me by the throat and he started shaking me like a rag doll," Fluty said Monday, before being sentenced to 15 years in prison for the killing of Anderson. His handcuffs shook as he tried to demonstrate.
"How do you reconcile 13 stab wounds as self-defense?" Kanawha Circuit Judge Charles King asked before handing down the maximum sentence.
Erika Williams, Anderson's daughter, balled her fist up tightly, took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling when King announced the sentence.
She had asked the judge for the maximum sentence, saying through tears that Fluty had taken away her best friend and her children's grandfather.
"He was an amazing father and an even better grandfather," Williams said Monday.
Fluty, 60, pleaded guilty last November to voluntary manslaughter in the killing of Anderson, 59, of Clendenin.
Fluty initially had been charged with first-degree murder, but Kanawha County Assistant Prosecutor Maryclaire Akers said last year that Fluty was allowed to plead to the lesser charge after evidence indicated there had been a fight between the two men. Akers also considered the fact that, while on the phone with 911 dispatchers, Fluty performed CPR on Anderson and was still trying to revive him when paramedics arrived at the scene.
Anderson had been living with Fluty and his mother in their Big Chimney home. The night of the stabbing, Fluty and his mother had been arguing, as they often did, Fluty said Monday.
But this time, Anderson tried to intervene and start a fight with Fluty, he said.
"I told him, I said, 'Benny, go back to your room. This is about me and mom,' " Fluty told the judge.
Williams told the judge that she knew her father's death wasn't in vain and that she was sure her father had died trying to protect Fluty's mother. Fluty's mother didn't attend the sentencing hearing. Fluty said his mother suffers from dementia.
As part of the deal Fluty made with prosecutors, Akers agreed to stand silent during the sentencing hearing and not ask King for a specific amount of prison time.
Fluty's attorney, Richard Holicker, a Kanawha senior deputy public defender, requested that the judge not sentence his client to spend any more than three years in prison. Probation would be preferred, Holicker told the judge.
Fluty dropped out of high school to join the U.S. Air Force. He repaired airplanes between 1971 and 1975, Holicker said. He later earned his GED.
Anderson had served in the U.S. Coast Guard, his daughter said.
Williams said she remembered most the many cookouts her dad and Fluty would put together.
The two had been friends for more than 30 years.
"We've had disagreements over the years," Fluty told the judge, "but I loved Benny."
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.