WISE, Va. — A Wise County man has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, over a 2019 tree cutting accident that resulted in a woman’s death.

Tony Curtis Osborne, 39, of Pound, entered his guilty plea on Wednesday.

In doing so, he admitted to cutting down a 30-foot tree from a hillside overlooking U.S. 23 on Feb. 2, 2019. The tree fell off the hillside and into traffic, where it crushed a car driven by Iris Walker. She died before medical help could arrive.

Osborne admitted that the tree was not on his property, he did not have permission to cut it down, and he took no precautions to protect passing drivers.

“Tony Osborne engaged in a highly dangerous activity with the obvious potential to harm or kill people driving down a busy highway,” Asst. Commonwealth’s Attorney Ken Lammers said. “It did exactly that.  Osborne is the sole reason that Iris Walker is dead, and for that killing he is now convicted of manslaughter.  He deserves this conviction. This man was engaged in the illegal harvesting of a tree from someone else’s land at a location where the risk to the lives of anyone who happened to be on the highway below was blatantly obvious.  Iris Walker didn’t deserve to be killed, and Osborne deserves to be held responsible for taking her life.”

He will be sentenced July 21.