A North Little Rock teenager accepted an 18-year prison sentence Tuesday for fatally shooting a cemetery groundskeeper who had confronted him about trespassing.
Kelton Ahmad McIntire, 16, had twice confessed to the February 2020 slaying of Kristopher Bradley Dacus, 33, in North Little Rock's Edgewood Memorial Park cemetery before Tuesday, when he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, reduced from first-degree murder.
Asked by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson to describe what he'd done, McIntire admitted to the shooting for a third time.
"I shot a man and he died," McIntire told the judge.
McIntire faced up to 30 years on the second-degree murder charge, a Class A felony. His 18-year term was negotiated by defense attorney Michael Kaiser and deputy prosecutor Melissa Brown.
McIntire was arrested about two hours after Dacus was killed in the Division Street cemetery. The teen, who had been skipping school when he encountered Dacus, said he had accidentally shot Dacus after the older man had approached him and three teenage friends while they were cutting through the cemetery after buying some snacks and tobacco.
The cemetery has been a popular shortcut in the Camp Robinson Road neighborhood for decades.
McIntire, who had turned 15 about two weeks earlier, and his friends had been on the way back to Parkway Crossing apartments, about a block away, where McIntire was staying with an aunt. Police said McIntire's friends had run from Dacus and climbed a fence to get out of the cemetery.
McIntire described the shooting for police when he was arrested at the apartments about two hours after Dacus was killed. He testified about what had happened in a February 2021 court hearing in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the judge to transfer his case to juvenile court. McIntire apologized for shooting Dacus, telling the judge he was only trying to protect himself and that the man did not deserve to die.
The judge declined to give up jurisdiction, noting that McIntire's story to police was somewhat different from what the teen had said in court, further observing that his version of events differed from what eyewitnesses -- two other cemetery workers and a friend of McIntire's -- reported seeing.
McIntire said Dacus was shot when the man reached for McIntire's gun during a struggle, and the witnesses said they heard a shot while the two were close together.
The witnesses said McIntire fired at least one more time after they had separated, because one or the other had stepped back. Police found four shell casings where Dacus was shot, and he suffered from gunshot wounds in his buttocks, stomach and left upper arm.