Michael Pugh, a 22-year-old White/Caucasian male, was fatally shot on May 17, 2015, in Prosperity, West Virginia. The violence unfolded on Cranberry Drive in Raleigh County on a Sunday evening, shortly before 9 p.m. According to investigators, the confrontation was connected to an ongoing feud. Andrew Rizzi of Beckley reportedly went to the area with others as a fight involving Pugh was developing. What began as a dispute and physical confrontation quickly escalated when, during the altercation, Rizzi allegedly obtained a firearm and shot Pugh in the chest.
Pugh survived long enough to be transported for emergency medical treatment at Raleigh General Hospital, but the gunshot wound proved fatal and he died from his injuries. Raleigh County sheriff's deputies immediately treated the shooting as a homicide investigation.
Their early account indicated that the shooting was not considered a random attack; authorities specifically described the events as stemming from an ongoing feud and said Rizzi had gone to the location for the purpose of fighting.
Investigators identified Rizzi as the person who allegedly fired the fatal shot, and he was arrested on a murder charge. He was arraigned before Raleigh County Magistrate Greg Tanner and transported to the Southern Regional Jail, where he was initially held without bond. In the days following the killing, the Raleigh County Sheriff's Department continued investigating the circumstances surrounding the confrontation, including the events that brought the participants together and how the firearm came into Rizzi's possession during the fight.
The prosecution continued beyond the initial arrest. In September 2015, a Raleigh County grand jury formally indicted Andrew Rizzi on a charge of first-degree murder in connection with Pugh's death. Contemporary reporting described the case presented to the grand jury as a fatal shooting that began with a fight between the two men in Prosperity, consistent with the sheriff's department's original description of the incident.
Available online reporting clearly documents Rizzi's arrest, his detention without bond, and the subsequent first-degree murder indictment. However, reliable publicly accessible sources located for the case do not provide a confirmed final disposition of that murder prosecution, such as a jury verdict, guilty plea, dismissal, acquittal, or sentence. As a result, it would be inaccurate to state that Rizzi was ultimately convicted of killing Pugh without additional court documentation. What is established in the available record is that investigators accused Rizzi of firing the shot that killed Michael Pugh, arrested him for murder, and later obtained a first-degree murder indictment from the Raleigh County grand jury.
