A man charged with the shooting death of a Gary library board member could be sentenced to 85 years, according to a plea agreement.

Earl Shearer Sr., 67, of Gary and Chicago, admitted he broke into Mary Felton’s car on Dec. 8 at the Gary police station then shot her near 8th Avenue and Lincoln Street.

Felton, 74, was at the police facility to report that Shearer raped her days earlier. As she was leaving, two sex crimes detectives walked her to her car. One detective looked under her car for a tracking device, but admitted he didn’t look inside, according to an affidavit.

Felton was found fatally shot in her car less than two hours later.

A judge would need to accept the agreement.

Shearer agreed to plead guilty to murder and a firearms enhancement, sentenced to 65 and 20 years, respectively. The deal calls for his other charges to be dropped: including rape, criminal confinement, possession of a firearm and a habitual offender enhancement that would have added up to another 20 years alone.

After her murder, police later watched Shearer on security video pull up, park in their lot, then sneak into her back seat with a “distinctive limp,” charges state.

Felton told sex crimes detectives Shearer stalked and raped her at gunpoint Dec. 5.

Shearer was already in her house holding a gun when she returned home from the Ameristar Casino in East Chicago, she alleged. He ordered her to take off her clothes, then raped her, she said. Earlier that day, Shearer went to the gambling boat and found her outside the turnstile. She said she didn’t want to talk to him. He asked her not to call the police, according to documents.

They had started dating in May, but hadn’t had sex, she told detectives. By October, Felton, then Shearer, had filed protection orders against each other, according to court records.

Shearer was later arrested Dec. 9 in a traffic stop in Whiting.

He had $8,400 in cash under the floor mats. Police also found Shearer’s seven credit cards inside with a suitcase of clothing and toiletries in the trunk, documents said.

Shearer had multiple felonies in Illinois and Georgia listed in court records dating back decades: aggravated battery in 1977, a 1980 murder conviction, both in Cook County. Other convictions included possession of a firearm in 1994, aggravated stalking and aggravated battery, 1999, all in Georgia.

Felton was their “beloved matriarch,” her family wrote.

She worked under three Gary mayors as an accountant and director of grants, according to her obituary. She had also worked as a Calumet Township Trustee Finance Administrator. Felton previously served on the Gary School Board before her library board appointment.