MISSOULA – A Missoula man was sentenced Tuesday to 100 years in prison for the beating death of a homeless Navy veteran.
Anthony St. Dennis was sentenced in the death of 56-year-old Forrest Salcido, whose body was found the morning of Dec. 6, 2007, near a footbridge in Missoula.
District Judge John Larson sentenced St. Dennis and made him ineligible for parole for 40 years, which means 19-year-old St. Dennis will be 59 before he can be paroled.
“Your actions are inexcusable,” Larson told St. Dennis, who offered a rambling apology to the Salcido family at his sentencing hearing Tuesday, the Missoulian newspaper reported on its Web site.
“I mourn for Mr. Salcido and I pray for him each day and night,” St. Dennis told Larson.
St. Dennis was tried and convicted in Havre after defense lawyers argued successfully that media coverage of the homicide was inflammatory, making it impossible to choose an impartial jury in Missoula.
St. Dennis’ co-defendant, 21-year-old Dustin Strahan, also is charged with homicide and is scheduled to stand trial Monday in Helena.
St. Dennis’ attorneys have tried to downplay his role in the murder, and St. Dennis himself described the killing as an “accident” on Tuesday.
That theory didn’t impress Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg, who asked Larson to sentence St. Dennis to 100 years in prison.
“What you’ve done is unforgivable,” said Van Valkenburg, who didn’t make a parole recommendation.
Larson followed Van Valkenburg’s recommendation for 100 years, but made sure St. Dennis would remain in prison for 40 by making him ineligible for parole. Without that designation, St. Dennis would have been parole-eligible after serving a quarter of his term.
That sentence pleased members of Salcido’s family.
“That’s exactly what we wanted,” said Salcido’s niece, Tina Zawada.