A District teenager admitted to pulling the trigger in the slaying of a popular District middle school teacher after setting up an online sex encounter, a shooting described by a prosecutor as “a robbery that went bad.”
Alante Saunders, 19, on Monday pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, and Montgomery County prosecutors agreed to a sentence of life in prison with all but 40 years suspended. That means Saunders could be eligible for parole in 20 years if Judge John Debelius III approves the deal at the sentencing scheduled for Nov. 23.
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said the killing was not premeditated but unfolded as a result of Saunders’ plan to rob someone he met on the sex chat line. “Mr. Saunders is the individual who shot Brian Betts,” he said.
The killing of the Shaw Middle School principal shocked many in the local education community, in which Betts had become a well-known advocate of the reforms of former Chancellor Michelle Rhee.
His death shined a spotlight on gaping problems with the District’s juvenile justice system that let juveniles with violent histories walk away from their boarding houses with impunity.
Saunders, who was 18 at the time of the shooting, admitted that he met the 42-year-old principal on an Internet sex chat line with the intent to find a victim to rob.
Betts and the teen made plans for Saunders to visit on April 14: Betts would leave the door unlocked and wait inside, according to Saunders’ written description of the crime.
Saunders went upstairs to Betts’ bedroom armed with a handgun, while his friends Sharif Tau Lancaster, Deontra Gray and Joel Johnson, all 18, stayed behind to help loot the place, prosecutors said.
Saunders and Betts got into a struggle, and the gun went off, shooting Betts, according to Saunders’ statement. His attorney, David Felsen, said the shooting was accidental.
With Betts dying on his bedroom floor, the teenagers made off with his television, camera, iPod and credit cards and drove off in Betts’ Nissan Xterra. Betts’ body was found the next day.
Within two hours of the shooting, Betts’ credit cards were used at a gas station and a McDonald’s. The cards were used several times again that day, and Saunders, Lancaster, Gray and Johnson showed up on store surveillance videos, prosecutors said.
Police said they caught a break in the case April 16, when 46-year-old Artura Otey Williams charged about $100 on Betts’ stolen credit card at a Giant food store in Silver Spring. Williams is the mother of Lancaster. She has been charged with using a stolen credit card.
Saunders, Lancaster and Gray were all found at Gray’s house. A search warrant executed at that house police found cell phones, Betts’ wallet and the keys to his sport utility vehicle.
They then found Lancaster’s fingerprints inside Betts’ house and Saunders’ inside Betts’ stolen SUV.
Lancaster, Johnson and Gray also have been charged with murder. Lancaster’s trial is set for Nov. 29. The medical examiner ruled that Betts’ cause of death was a single gunshot wound that penetrated his heart, lungs, aorta, backbone and spinal cord.
