A judge sentenced a Massachusetts steelworker to 20 years in prison and eight years of extended supervision in connection with his former girlfriend’s shooting death.

Forty-year-old Phillip Byrd pleaded guilty in July to one count of second-degree intentional homicide. He will not be eligible for early release.

“I’m really sorry as far as what I’m putting my family through,” Byrd said in court Tuesday. “They don’t deserve this and neither does Cheryl’s family deserve to not be with her.”

Sheriff’s deputies discovered Cheryl Gilberg dead in her Mazomanie home in February. Investigators arrested Byrd in Janesville the next day. According to court documents, he told investigators he and Gilberg got into a fight and her gun went off twice during the struggle.

A criminal complaint states that Byrd told detectives that the incident started in her home when Gilberg pointed a gun at him, ordered him to his knees and put a gun in his mouth. He said he was able to knock her hand away and began wrestling with Gilberg and knocked her onto a bed while he tried to get the gun out of her hand. He told detectives that he was able to knock the gun out of her hand, and he tackled her as she retrieved the gun.

Byrd said that while on the floor he was able to get on top of her and hit her again. He told detectives he put a pillow over her face to restrict her vision and was trying to get her finger out of the trigger guard when the gun fired into the pillow. He said it went off again as he continued to try to wrestle the gun out of her hand. He said she didn’t pull the trigger.

Byrd said he thought she was still alive when he left the scene.

Gilberg was shot twice in the head, officials said.

Dane County Sheriff’s deputies looked for evidence Thursday afternoon that may have been discarded in connection to the Mazomanie homicide, officials said.

Deputies “randomly” chose to look for evidence on Highway 14 just east of Black Earth, authorities said. They did not find anything, but plan to continue the search Friday morning.

The Dane County Sheriff’s Office has named a person of interest in the death of a Mazomanie woman.

Phillip A. Byrd, 39, of Janesville has been named a person of interest in the homicide investigation of Cheryl Gilberg, according to a release. Byrd is being held in the Rock County Jail on charges of bail jumping and drug possession.

According to the criminal complaint, a prescription amphetamine pill bottle prescribed to Gilberg was found alongside prescriptions belonging to Byrd during the home search.

Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney said in a news conference Tuesday the medical examiner ruled that Gilberg died from “homicidal firearm violence to the head.”

Deputies were called to 306 Scott St. at 7:10 p.m. Sunday for a report of an injured woman.

Gilberg was pronounced dead at the scene by the Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Mahoney said there was a history of domestic violence at the home, and that Gilberg filed for a restraining order last week. Court records show she filed it against a former or current live-in boyfriend, and it was scheduled to go to court Wednesday. Mahoney wouldn’t say if that man is being questioned.

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