Leslie Sanders (L and R) via Rice County Attorney’s Office, Larry Myers (C) via obituary.
A Minnesota man pleaded guilty Friday to murder after a cancer-stricken Vietnam veteran on the way to dialysis appointment was fatally beaten in a “brutal, unprovoked, and irrational” road rage incident, prosecutors say.
Leslie Shawn Sanders, 53, admittedly punched 79-year-old Larry Lynn Myers repeatedly on June 27, 2022, and with such force that the Vietnam veteran died several days later from the senseless road rage attack that began with a minor traffic collision in Dundas.
Prosecutors said that Sanders cut Myers off and began punching the victim in the face through a car window as witnesses looked on.
“The assault stemmed from an incident on Cannon City Boulevard near 154th Street E, about 3 miles southeast of Dundas where Sanders’ pickup passed the SUV driven by Myers, hitting it as he moved back into the northbound lane,” prosecutors said. “The vehicles continued to the intersection of Hester Street and Schilling Drive in Dundas, where Sanders got out of his truck, approached Myers’ SUV and started punching Myers in the face.”
Nine days later, Myers was taken off of life support.
“Myers suffered serious bodily harm, including multiple facial fractures and a significant brain injury,” prosecutors said. “When he later became unable to breathe on his own, doctors determined that his brain damage was too severe for him recover.”
After the deadly attack, then-Rice County Attorney John Fossum called it “a brutal, unprovoked, and irrational assault on another person.”
More Law&Crime coverage: Suspect identified in 1972 Thanksgiving cold case murder of Vietnam veteran shot to death while on a date
Read Related Also: Charlie Hunnam reunites with Sons of Anarchy co-star Katey Sagal as they join the picket line at Fox Studios in Los Angeles amid SAG-AFTRA strike
“Long-term incarceration would be the only appropriate response to the murder of Mr. Myers,” Fossum said in 2022.
Though assault charges were dropped as part of Sanders’ guilty plea, he did admit to a second-degree murder charge, a crime technically punishable by not more than 40 years.
Current Rice County Attorney Brian Mortenson said that the agreed-upon punishment (i.e., “executed sentence“) in the plea deal was 140 months (just under 12 years).
“We understand that no amount of prison time will ever be enough to make up for a lost loved one,” he said. “We greatly appreciate the family’s cooperation, communication and understanding while the case has been pending.”
Larry Myers was a U.S. Air Force veteran who rose to the rank of staff sergeant and “received the Air Force Commendation Medal, among other commendations, during his tour in Vietnam,” according to his family.
Before he died, Myers had requested that his son and daughter scatter his ashes in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
In 2022, Myers’ son Wayne said the family wanted his dad to be remembered by the way he lived, not the way he died.
Leslie Sanders is currently set to appear in a Rice courtroom on Oct. 12 for sentencing.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
