BALTIMORE — Samuel Wise, the man arrested in the fatal shooting of a Little Italy restaurant manager, has pleaded guilty.
Wise has been sentenced to life in prison with all suspended but 50 years, with three years of probation upon release.
This will be served concurrently with a 20 year sentence where the first five years will be ineligible for parole, in addition to another five-year sentence.
Chesley Patterson was the manager of La Scala, a restaurant in Little Italy, for nearly two decades before he was killed.
Wise shot Patterson during a robbery attempt outside a Fells Point Liquor store.
According to charging documents, Wise and another man went on a robbery spree in the Fells Point area the night of January 23.
Within twelve-minutes, they assaulted and robbed two other people on Lancaster and Bond Streets before cornering Patterson outside the Bristol Liquor store on Eastern Avenue.
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Police were able to connect Wise to the scene because of the vehicle, a gold Honda Odyssey Van.
Crime scene technicians discovered finger prints on the passenger door, that turned out to be Wise's.
During an initial interview, Wise admitted to being the passenger in the gold van the night of the murder.
He also gave investigators permission to look in his phone, which showed conversations between Wise and his girlfriend, and another person.
In the text thread with his girlfriend, Wise writes in one message "I'm robbing." About 22 minutes later, she pinged his phone which showed him on Eastern Avenue.
A day later, Wise messaged his girlfriend that he's ready to "get booked for a f**k**g murder."
Wise was officially taken into custody on April 12, and according to police tried escaping while being interviewed by detectives at headquarters.
