A man who admitted to dumping the dead body of Mark A. McNulty along a residential road in Hermitage was sentenced by Mercer County Common Pleas Judge Thomas R. Dobson.

Emce A. Jones, 41, Farrell, pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse Oct. 7 in the case. McNulty's body was found about 11:30 a.m. June 6 along Lynnwood Drive.

McNulty, 40, of 547 Lafayette Ave., Sharon, died in Jones' apartment June 4 or 5 from a mixture of heroin and cocaine according to Mercer County Deputy Coroner Cris H. Loutzenhiser. Jones traded a rock of crack cocaine for the use of a car to dump the body, police said.

McNulty's family filled the courtroom Wednesday, and watched in silence as Dobson handed down a sentence of 6 to 18 months in the Mercer County Jail. Dobson ordered Jones to serve the balance of his sentence on house arrest.

"He was somebody's father, somebody's son," Dobson said. "What you did was a very, very cold thing."

Jones' court-appointed attorney, Randall Hetrick, said his client felt a deep remorse for what he'd done.

"It was a very stupid act, and he understands that," Hetrick told Dobson. "They were friends," Hetrick said of Jones and McNulty, "and that makes it all the more worse for him."

Police said McNulty went to Jones' apartment at about 8:30 p.m. June 4, and was seen asking an unknown woman for a set of "riggs" -- paraphernalia used to inject heroin.

Jones told police that McNulty died in his apartment that night, but denied giving McNulty any drugs, police said.

Between 6 and 7 a.m. June 5, Jones traded a rock of crack cocaine for the use of a car and drove to Lynnwood Drive and dumped McNulty's body along the road, apparently rolling it into a ditch about 4 feet from the road, police said.