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NILES — An area resident has pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence and will be sentenced in late January.

Elizabeth Deanne Harper, 43, of Stevensville, had been charged with tampering with evidence and being an accessory after the fact related to the Nov. 2 shooting death of firefighter Chad Medlin in Eau Claire.

Berrien County Assistant Prosecutor Kate Arnold said Harper pleaded guilty Tuesday at the Niles courthouse to the tampering charge in exchange for the accessory after the fact charge being dismissed. The plea agreement does not include Harper testifying against the man charged in the homicide.

Harper will be sentenced Jan. 27 and faces up to 10 years in prison. She remains in jail in lieu of $25,000 cash or surety bond.

Arnold said Harper told Berrien County Trial Court Judge Jennifer Smith that she picked up Rigoberto Gomez, the suspect in the Nov. 2 homicide, in Millberg and took him back to her mother’s home in Coloma Township.

Harper said Gomez didn’t tell her what had happened except that there had been an altercation. She said that she looked outside the home the next morning after Gomez had been arrested by Berrien County Sheriff’s Deputies and found a black box in the backyard. She then threw it into the woods off of Rocky Gap Road on her way to work.

Gomez faces six felony charges: open murder, assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder, assault with a dangerous weapon and three counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. He has yet to appear in court for a pre-exam conference or preliminary hearing.

The incident occurred shortly after midnight on Nov. 2 when Berrien County Sheriff’s Deputies were called to downtown Eau Claire on reports of an altercation and a shooting at the intersection of Main and Elm Streets in the village. They found Medlin unresponsive as well as another man who was injured. Medlin later died at the hospital.