Teen sentenced to life without parole for killing reserve deputy

CLAREMORE, Okla. (AP) -- A Rogers County judge has sentenced an 18-year-old to life in prison without the possibility of parole for fatally shooting a Delaware County reserve deputy as the teen tried to escape custody.

Slint Tate received the prison term Wednesday in exchange for pleading guilty to the first-degree murder of Vernie Milford Roberts on July 19, 1999.

Roberts, 65, and his wife, Betty Jean, were transporting Tate from the Delaware County Jail to the Tulsa County Juvenile Detention Center when Tate grabbed Mrs. Roberts around the throat and threatened to choke her unless Roberts stopped the car.

Roberts pulled over and tried to handcuff Tate, but the 16-year-old grabbed Roberts' gun and fired several times, eventually hitting him.

Mrs. Roberts accompanied her husband on the trip because she knew the teen from her volunteer work with juvenile services.

On Wednesday, Mrs. Roberts called the sentence "the best thing."

"I think it will be more of a punishment for him than the death penalty -- having to sit there all day, every day," she said.

Prosecutors had sought capital punishment, but District Attorney Gene Haynes said the plea was a good disposition of the case.

"It assures the public they'll be protected from him in the future," he said. "Anytime you go to trial, you always take the chance of not getting a guilty verdict or him just getting a life sentence."

The sentence will make things a little easier for Mrs. Roberts, but "it'll never be over with" completely, she said.

"He took my best friend, my sweetheart, my husband, the father of my kids and the grandfather of my grandchildren," she said.

Meanwhile, officials with the Delaware County Sheriff's Office plan to hold a ceremony to honor Roberts with a plaque to commemorate his service.

"I knew Vernie," Sheriff Lenden Woodruff said Wednesday. "He was a good man who died in service to Delaware County, and he should be honored and respected for that by all the people in the county."

Delaware County commissioners approved the hanging of the plaque this week. Woodruff said the plaque will be installed at the new jail.