Texas soldier pleads guilty in beating death

FORT BLISS, Texas — A Fort Bliss soldier pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges that he fatally beat another soldier with a baseball bat.

Pvt. Deandrez Robertson admitted in a Fort Bliss court that he hit Pvt. Pernell Robert Flowers II from behind in July 2008.

Robertson told a military judge that he swung the bat three times at Flowers, first knocking his teeth out, then again as Flowers was falling to the ground, then again in the chest as Flowers lay on the ground.

Flowers died about seven months after the attack.

Robertson told Col. Ted Dixon, the judge, that his swings were “pretty, pretty, pretty good. I think he was disoriented, and he started to turn. And I hit him again, and he fell.”

Robertson said Flowers never saw the first swing coming.

Capt. Brian Mathison, the prosecutor, said Robertson started plotting the July 18 attack after Flowers and two other soldiers identified him as a man who had pointed a shotgun at them at an off-post convenience store a few days earlier. In asking that Robertson be sentenced to life in prison, Mathison told Dixon that Robertson bragged about the shotgun incident and vowed to other soldiers to “beat down Private Flowers, and then go AWOL.”

Robertson was arrested in August 2008 on charges related to the baseball bat assault. He escaped from Fort Bliss in December with the help of a civilian and his Army girlfriend. He was arrested about a week later in Knoxville, Tenn., and has remained in custody since.

He pleaded guilty Wednesday to unpremeditated murder, assault with an unloaded firearm, escape from confinement, conspiracy to escape and obstruction of justice.

He could face up to life in prison without parole. Dixon was deliberating the sentence Wednesday night.

Flowers father, Pernell Flowers Sr. of El Paso, testified tearfully that his son just wanted to be a soldier: “He said, ‘They can keep the money, just let me be a soldier.’”

Robertson’s parents, Murphy and Mary Robertson, both apologized to the grieving father.

“If I could now, I would give my life to bring his son back and not be here watching my son going through this,” testified Murphy Robertson, a Louisiana police officer. Mary Robertson tearfully hugged the elder Flowers after her testimony.

Addressing the elder Flowers, Robertson said: “He didn’t do anything to deserve what I did. It was brutal and senseless.”