A teenager who admitted he would routinely rob drug dealers, but said he took good care of his 2-year-old child, will spend 29 years in prison in the death of a Virginia Commonwealth University student.
Richmond Circuit Judge Beverly W. Snukals yesterday sentenced Howard R. Scott III near the low end of sentencing guidelines in the robbery and shooting of Tyler J. Binsted, noting that the defendant was 17 when the crime took place.
Snukals added that she does not believe Scott knows the meaning of remorse.
"I'm not sure he clearly understands what that is," she said.
Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring described Scott as a reckless young man who acted as an enabler during the March 27 robbery in Byrd Park, but noted that Scott wasn't the shooter and that he led police to the two other suspects.
Scott, now 18, wearing black pants, a black shirt and a black-and-white tie, took a seat on the witness stand, where he often gave one-word answers to his attorney's questions and sometimes appeared confused.
He said he has had bad dreams since the killing and tried to hang himself while in jail after his arrest.
"I didn't feel like putting up with the pain," he said. He later apologized to Binsted's family.
Scott's mother, Terry Cain, tearfully described her son as a good father who was raised to be respectful, but whose drug problem left him changed.
A week before the shooting in Byrd Park, she said, she was called to the hospital and found her son in disarray. His face was dark, his lips were black, his hands were swollen, and he was dancing around the emergency room, she said.
She said she told hospital employees to keep him for treatment.
"If they had kept him there," she said yesterday, "we wouldn't be here today."
Cain expressed heartache for members of Binsted's family seated in court.
"I apologize so much for your pain; we both lost a child," she told them in court. "I know you can't see yours or touch yours."
"I was devastated as a mother," Cain added, gasping and bowing her head in tears.
Before the robbery, Scott said, he drank beer, smoked marijuana, and took at least three painkillers and some ecstasy.
Prosecutors say Scott and Zsabriela Evelyn Williams, 20, robbed Binsted and his girlfriend shortly after midnight. Williams had the gun the whole time and told the couple to get in the trunk of the girlfriend's car, prosecutors say. Binsted refused. As he and his girlfriend were walking away, Williams shot him in the back, authorities said. Binsted was 19.
Williams was sentenced in November to life plus 13 years in prison. A third defendant, LaPrecious Nicole Austin, pleaded guilty to robbery and other charges last week. She is to be sentenced March 10.
Snukals sentenced Scott to 40 years on a charge of first-degree murder but suspended all but 16 years. She gave him 13 years on three firearm charges and 40 years, suspended, for two robbery counts.
After the hearing, Binsted's father, Tom, said he derived no pleasure from watching Scott on the witness stand.
"I couldn't help but feel some compassion for him," Binsted said. "Obviously a troubled young man."
Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com.
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