A Chesterton-area man has pleaded guilty, reports say, to killing his estranged wife in April of last year, allegedly shooting her multiple times with a high-powered semiautomatic rifle at an herbal shop she owned on US 6 in Portage. The Times says 56-year-old Fredrick Cashner Jr faces a minimum sentence of 45 years in prison. A Porter County judge is expected to decide in early January whether to accept the plea agreement.

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