GUILTY PA - Artie Bradley, 38, shot to death, Pottstown, 20 March 2015

A Philadelphia man has been convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of a man called by authorities his former partner in a drug business.

The Reading Eagle reports that Montgomery County jurors deliberated for nearly three hours Friday before convicting 38-year-old Richard Collins. He faces a mandatory life term without parole in the March 2015 slaying of 38-year-old Artie Bradley in Pottstown.

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Richard Collins was sentenced Wednesday to spend the rest of his life behind bars for the March 2015 murder of his former drug-dealing partner in Pottstown.

Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy handed down the mandatory life sentence for Collins, 38, of Philadelphia.

“This is a very dangerous defendant,” Demchick-Alloy said Wednesday at the Montgomery County Youth Detention Center, where the sentencing was held. “This was a very cold-blooded, calculated killing by a well-entrenched drug dealer.”

The judge tacked on an additional 61/2 to 15 years in prison for drug charges.

“I want to make it clear that you are being held accountable for drug dealing, over and above,” Demchick-Alloy said. “I want the record to reflect it, and I want the sentence to reflect it. There’s no doubt about what prompted this killing and what was behind it.”

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A Pottstown woman who ran a drug trafficking business with her onetime paramour is on her way to state prison for playing a role in the murder of another man during a dispute about money related to the drug deals.

Mariah Anne Walton, 23, of the 600 block of State Street, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court on Thursday to nine to 20 years in state prison on charges of third-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the March 20, 2015, gunshot slaying of Artie Bradley in Pottstown.

“The life that was lost here, that impacts his family forever. You made the decision to enter the world of drug dealing and violence,” Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy addressed Walton during a hearing at the county’s Youth Center in West Norriton. “It’s truly unfortunate a life had to be lost in the midst of this.”

The judge added, however, that in fashioning a sentence she did consider Walton’s eventual cooperation with prosecutors when Walton testified against her former boyfriend Richard Allen “Bub” Collins, who delivered the fatal shots to Bradley during a confrontation at Washington and Beech streets. Collins, 38, of Philadelphia, was convicted of first-degree murder at a trial earlier this year and is serving a life prison sentence.

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