A good share of the guests at Craig Haas’ small wedding in 2003 were guards at the Allegheny County Prison.

He’d met them while struggling with a heroin addiction and bipolar disorder and falling in and out of trouble with the law.

But they attended his wedding as friends.

That’s just how life was for Haas, a 45-year-old hairdresser, who’d moved to Butler City about six months before being shot to death Sept. 27, 2012.

Haas was troubled, but loved and valued, according to his family. His father, two sisters and wife spoke at length Wednesday when Richard Neyman, the man who shot Haas, was sentenced in Butler County Court.

Haas’ family members described the impact of the loss on their lives and their disgust at the terms of the plea arrangement: Neyman, 38, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and will spend 7½ to 15 years in prison, minus the time he spent awaiting resolution of his case.

“He could be free in five years,” said Haas’ sister, Susan Haas of West Virginia. “I feel sorry for the family of his next victim.”

Judge Timothy McCune, who accepted the plea and issued the sentence, said he didn’t know all the details of the evidence. But he believes that if Neyman had gone to trial, he could have spent a lifetime in prison “or he could have walked out of here a free man. This case could have gone either way.”

Assistant District Attorney Mark Lope, who crafted the deal on behalf of prosecutors, said in court that he believed it was appropriate given the circumstances, evidence and witnesses.

Under the section of the law Neyman pleaded to, voluntary manslaughter is defined as: “(the defendant) intentionally or knowingly kills an individual committing voluntary manslaughter if, at the time of the killing he believes the circumstances to be such that if they existed would justify the killing. But this belief is unreasonable.”

As part of his plea, Neyman doesn’t dispute that he killed Haas.

Neyman at the time of the shooting reportedly told investigators that he’d gone to Haas’ apartment in search of his girlfriend. When he arrived, Neyman allegedly claimed he was attacked by Haas and a .38-caliber revolver that Neyman had went off, fatally shooting Haas in the chest.

One of Neyman’s attorneys, Charles Nedz, previously said had the case gone to trial, Neyman would have asserted that when he arrived at Haas’s apartment he heard a woman inside in distress. He mistakenly believed the female voice was his girlfriend, and he would have testified that he heard her call for help.

Neyman knocked on the door. And as he and Haas argued, the woman inside the apartment, left, Nedz said. Neyman would have claimed that when the woman left, Haas became enraged to the point that he attacked Neyman and he believed his life was in danger.

Neyman during sentence court expressed remorse. In a short statement, he said he was high on drugs the night of the shooting and didn’t intend to kill anyone.

“I made a decision that night I will have to live with for the rest of my life,” he said to Haas’ family.

Susan Haas replied, “That doesn’t sound like ‘I’m sorry I killed Craig.’ It sounds like ‘I’m sorry I’m going to jail.’”

Haas family said they don’t believe the weapon fired accidentally. And they don’t believe their loved one was threatening to Neyman. They said he was so known not to be violent that he was appointed barber while in the Allegheny County Prison.

Haas’ family and wife, Lorrie Haas, said much of Haas’ life was “chaos” because of his drug addiction, but he made attempts to break away from it, including taking suboxone, going to therapy and even trying electroshock.

“I’m going to be a lot of work for the unlucky soul who tries to put me back together,” Haas wrote to one sister of his recovery attempts.

In his latest recovery attempt, he followed the age-old advice of moving away from the people, places and things that trigger drug abuse. His family says he was clean when he moved from Pittsburgh to Butler, where he was in the process of establishing therapy and services and even had a family planning session in the days before his death.

Younger sister Cynthia Bullinger described the meeting as frank. And she recalled her brother telling her that no one ever grows up saying, “I want to be an addict and a criminal when I grow up.”

The family said they were hopeful the move would be the turning point. But instead, they turned on the television one day and saw on the news that Haas had been shot to death.

Lorrie Haas sobbed, spoke at length and passionately accused Neyman of killing her husband while he gets to exercise and watch cable television in prison. She brought a framed photograph of her husband and concluded her statement with: “You’re a piece of (expletive),” directed at Neyman.

The family said they also felt victimized by the judicial system because the case took years to resolve, and it ended in the plea they find “insufficient.”

Although the family said they do not believe Neyman’s sentence is long enough. Bullinger said she’s happy she lives in California because they believe when Neyman gets out of prison he will return to the Butler area.

“And nothing builds confidence better than getting away with murder,” Bullinger said.