A Lebanon man who pushed a sleeping homeless woman into the Cumberland River last year pleaded guilty to second-degree murder this morning in a Nashville courtroom. In exchange for his guilty plea before Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Randall Wyatt, Timothy Webber will have to serve 17 years in prison day for day. 

Police said Webber and Josh Dotts were drunk and intent on picking on homeless people when they dared one another to push Tara Cole into the river.

Cole, a 32-year-old woman who was suffering from bi-polar disorder, was sleeping on a boat dock near Nashville’s Riverfront Park, when she was pushed into the water.

Dotts, who has maintained all along that he didn’t push Cole in the water, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of facilitation of second-degree murder. He will have to serve eight years at 30%.

Dotts’ lawyer, Jack Lowery, said that his client, who has been in jail since the August 11, 2006 incident, would be eligible for parole in a few months.

Cole’s death sparked outrage in the homeless community and was the inspiration for nightly vigils and a documentary.