The lawyer for one of the 16-year-olds charged with fatally beating World War II veteran Delbert Belton said there's scant evidence against his client.
"There are no eyewitnesses and no forensic evidence that links either of the kids to the crime," said Christian Phelps, who is representing Demetruis Glenn.
Glenn and buddy Kenan Adams-Kinard are charged with first-degree murder and robbery in the slaying of the 88-year-old grandfather, who was found bloodied in his car outside the Fraternal Order of Eagles Lodge in Spokane, Wash, last week.
Adams-Kinard will make his first court appearance Tuesday, and police have said they expect he will be charged as an adult. Glenn was charged as an adult, and his lawyer said he plans to plead not guilty.
Both teens were captured on
security cameras near the lodge around the time Belton was killed, and police said Glenn had cuts on his hand. Phelps would not say what his client was doing in the area.
"A lot of folks just want to throw these kids away and the key — or worse," the attorney told NBC News. "I would urge people to wait for the facts to develop."
Glenn surrendered the day after the attack, but Adams-Kinard spent four days on the run before police caught up to him Monday. His family said he does not yet have a lawyer.
"He'd fallen in with the wrong crowd," said his uncle, Odell Kinard. "It's the summer and ain't nothing to do here.
"He has to take responsibility," he added. "But the family is
praying he gets 10 years or less."
Spokane Police Chief Frank Straub has described the teens — who have prior convictions for assault — as "two young men who just spun out of control."
He said the motive was robbery and Belton was beaten to a pulp when he put up a fight.
The veteran's death drew national attention because of his age and the fact that he survived being shot during the Battle of Okinawa only to be randomly killed on his way to shoot some pool.
Some commentators also seized on the fact that the suspects are black and Belton was white, though Straub said unequivocally that race was not an issue.
The police chief said the tragedy of Belton's murder was compounded by the age of the suspects — and issued a call to action for programs to help
troubled youth.
"He came close to losing his life in service to this country in Okinawa and then he gets killed needlessly in the parking lot while he’s waiting for a friend. That’s the tragedy of this thing," Straub said of the victim.
"The second piece is two young men whose lives and the lives of their families are ruined by criminal activity."
He said he planned to institute a mentoring program to ensure the city's youth have good role models.
"We have a collective responsibility to make sure these types of events don’t happen and that our children don’t wind up in these situations," he said.
"We have to wrap our arms around our children," he said. "Where families can't get it together, the community has to."
The victim's daughter-in-law said the suspects "need to pay the consequences.'
"They just kept hitting and hitting him," Barbara Belton said. "He was an 88-year-old man. Even if they wanted his money and he didn't want to give it to them, they didn't need to do that."
