When Gloria Troxell’s husband was killed 21 years ago, she didn’t know it, but she was six weeks pregnant with his child. Now 21-years-old, her son has had to grow up without his father.

Tommy Christopher Bynum pleaded guilty on Tuesday to manslaughter in the shooting deaths of Troxell and Thomas Robinson in March 2001. Both cases were cold and were reopened by Meridian police detective Jay Arrington and the department’s cold case unit.

“Justice wasn’t served today,” Troxell’s widow, Gloria said. “He should have been convicted of murder.”

Troxell, who said she also was shot in the altercation with Bynum, made a trip from her home in Vancleave to be in Meridian for the trial. She said she doesn’t know why he wasn’t convicted 21 years ago because, according to her, she clearly saw Bynum at the time of the shooting.

Bynum is currently serving a 12-year sentence in the Mississippi Department of Corrections for simple robbery. He also served four years for possession of a controlled substance in 1984.

He received a 20-year sentence for each of the deaths.

District Attorney Bilbo Mitchell said on Tuesday that he was pleased to get the plea from Bynum, although he said he understood the families were hoping for a life sentence.

In the death of Troxell, Mitchell said the grand jury in the 1980s didn’t feel there was enough evidence to indict Bynum. But, Mitchell said, detective Arrington reinterviewed the witnesses and brought forth enough evidence to convince both Mitchell and the grand jury that Bynum should stand trial.

In the death of Robinson, Mitchell said at the time there was not enough evidence to even present to a grand jury to ask for an indictment. Mitchell said, again, Arrington reinterviewed those involved and the case was based on the fact that Bynum was the last person to see Robinson alive at about 8:30 p.m. before he was killed around midnight.