COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—A soldier who pleaded guilty in the shooting death of a fellow Iraq veteran apologized to the victim’s family in court Monday and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Kenneth Eastridge, 24, pleaded guilty in July to accessory to murder in the death of Kevin Shields. Shields’ family said he had just learned his wife was pregnant and had gone to a nightclub to celebrate when he was killed on Dec. 1, his birthday. While there, he met up with Eastridge and Louis Bressler, two soldiers he met while serving in Iraq.
Prosecutors said Bressler killed Shields after the two of them fought in a park and Eastridge later helped get rid of evidence.
“I don’t have the right to ask for forgiveness but I just hope that everybody knows someday that I really am sorry,” Eastridge said, visibly shaking as he read his statement from a podium in the courtroom.
“I believe he loved his family,” said Eastridge, who was wearing an orange jail suit and had a tattoo on one arm of a double lightning bolt, a neo-Nazi symbol. “I really didn’t know him that well but he spoke a lot about his wife and his kids …. I had no idea that Kevin was going to be killed.”
Outside the courtroom, Shields’ mother, Debra Shields of Loves Park, Ill., held her son’s dog tags and tearfully said it was the first time any of the three defendants had shown any remorse.
“It doesn’t make the pain go away,” she said.
One of the other defendants, Bruce Bastien Jr., was sentenced in September to 60 years in prison. He pleaded guilty to accessory to murder in Shields’ death and conspiracy to commit murder in the August 2007 death of another soldier, Robert James.
The third defendant, Bressler, the alleged triggerman in Shields’ death, is charged with first-degree murder. Jury selection in his trial started Monday, and Eastridge has agreed to testify against him.
Bressler also faces charges of first-degree murder in James’ slaying, where he is also accused of being the triggerman. His trial in that case is scheduled to start Dec. 1.
Bressler, Eastridge and Shields served together in Iraq. Bastien was also a soldier at Fort Carson.
In court Monday, Eastridge looked down at a table and swayed in his chair as Debra Shields and the victim’s grandparents, Madlyn and Ivan Shields, spoke of their loss.
Madlyn Shields outside of court said Kevin’s wife didn’t feel well because of the pregnancy and told him to have a good time but asked him not to drink and drive.
“He was born at 2:30 in the morning and the shots rang out at 2:30 (Dec. 1, 2007), exactly 24 years from the time of his birth,” a crying Debra Shields said outside of court.
Shields’ children are 4 years and 5 months old. He was preparing to start a job at Hewlett-Packard as an account executive when he was killed, Madlyn Shields said.
Kevin Shields’ family said he enjoyed skiing and snowboarding, golf, and played baseball as a youngster. He was interested in computers, building them for soldiers in Iraq so they could communicate with their family, and was very proud of his service in the military.
Eastridge’s attorney, Sheilagh McAteer, said during the sentencing hearing that he was the least culpable of the defendants. She said Eastridge didn’t actually participate in the attack but watched from the back seat of a car and helped get rid of evidence because he felt he had to help a friend.
McAteer said that during two tours in Iraq, Eastridge manned a machine gun on top of a Humvee and saw “more battles and bloodshed as a 19-year-old than most will ever see in a lifetime.”
She said he suffered a serious head injury when a roadside bomb struck his Humvee during his first tour, tossing him 30 to 60 feet. She said a pre-sentence report found Eastridge suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and she blamed the military for discharging him without medical help.
El Paso County District Judge Theresa Cisneros and Shields’ family both rejected that argument.
“He needs to take responsibility,” Debra Shields said. “He’s a grown man. He can ask for help.”
Cisneros accepted the plea agreement over the objections of the Shields family and Erica Ham, a woman who was hit by a car, stabbed and robbed of her purse in October 2007 as the three drove around Colorado Springs.
Deputy District Attorney Jack Roth said he believes Eastridge was more involved in the slaying and attack on Ham than he has said, but Roth told Cisneros he struck the plea agreement after informing the families.
“Sometimes you have to make deals with the devil to find out what happened,” Roth said.
Eastridge also pleaded guilty to felony robbery in Ham’s case, and felony menacing for waving a gun at his girlfriend in March 2006. He was ordered to serve three years of parole and ordered to pay restitution, which will be determined later as part of his sentence on all three charges.
Eastridge is not facing charges in James’ death. Eastridge was deployed in Iraq at the time of that slaying, but investigators said he knew about it and told authorities only after he had been arrested in Shields’ slaying.
Eastridge, Bastien and Bressler are three of at least five soldiers who were deployed to Iraq with the 4th Brigade Combat Team who have been accuse in slayings in the past 15 months. A sixth faces attempted murder charges.
Army commanders said they have formed a task force to identify any commonalities in the slayings allegedly committed by the soldiers.
Bressler’s wife, Tira, has said her husband suffers from post traumatic stress disorder.
