RAPID CITY (AP) — A South Dakota man accused of attacking a sleeping man with a baseball bat and beating him to death has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
Kyle Yankton, 21, entered the plea Wednesday in federal court in Rapid City. In exchange for pleading guilty, prosecutors downgraded the charge from first-degree murder and agreed to recommend that Yankton serve from 23 to 30 years in prison. The judge could still reject the deal.
Prosecutors say Yankton entered his ex-girlfriend’s house in Pine Ridge on June 30 and killed her boyfriend, Pablo Galindo Jr., 23, by beating him over the head with the bat while he was sleeping.
Lorna Galindo, of Scottsbluff, Neb., said after the hearing that her oldest son was an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe who moved from Nebraska to Pine Ridge just two months before the incident to help out his grandparents.
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