YOUNGSTOWN — A grandfather who admitted on the witness stand to shooting a man in the back was acquitted Friday on charges of murder and aggravated murder, but was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter with a gun specification.

A Mahoning County jury of 10 men and two women rendered the verdict Friday afternoon.

Louis Littlejohn, 65, formerly of Liberty, will be sentenced in mid-July by Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Anthony D’Apolito, who ordered a presentence investigation by the adult probation department.

On Thursday, Littlejohn admitted to jurors that his anger got the best of him as he shot Charles Pargo, 27, in the back on Sept. 18, 2017, at a Belden Avenue home on the South Side.

“I didn’t mean to shoot him in the back at all,” Littlejohn said, adding he didn’t know the victim was holding Littlejohn’s grandson at the time.

Jurors took over the case Friday morning after hearing closing arguments and instructions for deliberations.

The trial had been delayed because of COVID-19 restrictions and the defendant’s mental health issues. The judge ordered mental health evaluations to determine whether Littlejohn was not guilty by reason of insanity. The results of such evaluations are not made public, but the case continued after the evaluations, indicating that he was deemed to be sane at the time of the killing.

Littlejohn also testified he bought the gun he used to kill Pargo on the street about six months earlier. He could not get a concealed carry license because of mental problems, he said.

Defense attorney Joseph F. Gorman of Akron asked the jurors to consider the voluntary manslaughter charge against his client because Littlejohn was overcome with rage before shooting the victim.

“Your duty is to do justice in this case that has been going on for four long years,” Gorman told jurors.

Gorman said his client had good intentions “and in a matter of seconds, changed the course of his life.”

After closing, Gorman told reporters that he went with an emotional closing because he admitted the physical evidence was against him in this case.

Assistant Prosecutor Dawn Cantalamessa, meanwhile, told jurors in closing that Littlejohn was acting out of revenge.

“He couldn’t get what he wanted,” she said in noting that Pargo would not hand over the 3-week-old son and get out of the house. “You can’t execute someone for violating a protection order.”

During the trial, Littlejohn’s daughter Brittany testified about the events that led up to the shooting — getting a protection order against Pargo about six months earlier but allowing him to babysit their 3-week-old son, Isaiah, because she worked and could not start the baby in daycare until he was 6 weeks old.

The day of the shooting, Brittany got into an argument with Pargo and called her mother. That led Louis Littlejohn and his wife to drive from their apartment on Logan Gate Road in Liberty to their daughter’s house. Louis Littlejohn, who was a passenger in the car, called police twice as they drove into Youngstown to ask officers to meet them there.

Lisha Littlejohn, Louis’ wife, testified that she and Louis went to Brittany’s house because Pargo “wouldn’t give her the baby.”

When they got to the house, Pargo was “screaming and hollering” that “Nobody is taking his son from him,” she said. Three police officers responded to the 911 call.

As police were prepared to leave with Louis sitting on the porch, Pargo made a crude remark about Brittany, Littlejohn testified.

“That’s when I lost it,” he said. He walked fast into the house and shot at Pargo six times, four of the shots hitting him in the back as he ascended stairs inside the door.