Washington teen pleads guilty to beating WWII veteran to death

Demetrius Glenn has plead guilty to killing World War II veteran Delbert Belton. The Washington teen is facing up to 16 years in prison.

According to the Huffington Post, Glenn pleaded guilty to murder on Monday and is expected to be sentenced on March 15. In 2013, he and Kenan Adams-Kinard beat to death the 88-year-old war veteran. Both were 16 at the time of the murder.

Belton’s death has been described by police as a random attack of violence. The two teens targeted him while he was waiting for a friend outside of a pool hall.

After robbing Belton, both teens beat him and left him to die. The WWII veteran was transported to the hospital and died shortly after arrival.

The Huffington Post reported that Adams-Kinard originally said that the killing was a result of a drug deal gone wrong. He said he was trying to buy crack cocaine from Belton, but police quickly dismissed this notion as a lie.

Last month, Adams-Kinard pleaded guilty to the murder and received a sentence of 20 years in prison. He was initially a fugitive and ran from police, but later confessed to the killing via letter upon his arrest.

The case escalated when the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist group, put a $10,000 bounty on the heads of Glenn and Adams-Kinard. Authorities have placed Adams-Kinard in an adult jail for safety purposes.

“Uncle Delbert was brutally and savagely beaten to the point they couldn’t put his face back together,” said one of Belton’s nephew’s last month in court. “This was not a beating. This was exceptionally cruel.”

Belton was referred to as “Shorty” by his friends. All that knew him said he loved playing pool and working on cars.

“He was always there for me when I needed him,” said Belton’s friend, Ted Denison. “I thought of him more as a dad than I did a friend really.”

Belton fought in the Battle of Okinawa, where even after taking a bullet to the leg, he continued fighting in the heart of the battlefield.