BILLINGS — A Montana man has been sentenced to 65 years in prison for his role in killing and beheading a man at a transient camp after the victim won $120 at a casino.
Donald Ray Cherry, 34, was sentenced Friday by District Judge Gregory Todd for the October 2017 death of Myron Wesley Knight in Billings, The Billings Gazette reports.
Cherry’s co-defendant, Jeffery Glen Haverty, is serving a 50-year prison sentence handed down in February 2020.
Knight, 41, had $6 on him when he was killed, court records said. He had asked a casino employee to hold his winnings that night because he feared Cherry and Haverty might rob him, the employee told investigators.
“The incredible senselessness of this crime is staggering,” Todd said Friday. He also noted that Cherry was accused of attacking a jail guard and has more than 75 write-ups for misconduct during the 3 1/2 years he’s spent in jail.
“I think people would say (this sentence) is less than appropriate,” Todd said, but added that he’d agreed to follow the agreement under which Cherry pleaded no contest to deliberate homicide.