10 years for fatal beating

PALMER — Describing his crime as “awful” and “horribly sad,” a judge Friday sentenced a homeless man who beat a friend to death last year to 10 years in prison.

John R. Martin was arrested in October 2013. According to the account of events contained in court documents and related at Friday’s hearing, Martin had been drinking with his friend, Russell Metcalf, when they started fighting, perhaps about whether Martin would ask the Mug-Shot Saloon if Metcalf could keep his motor home parked behind the bar as he’d been doing.

“I don’t remember the fight,” Martin said in court. “I wish I could change it.”

He said that he blacked out as they fought, and came to standing over Metcalf with his arm cocked back. He asked Metcalf what happened.

“I thought someone else had beat him up,” Martin said.

He said his friend told him he didn’t want to go to the hospital, didn’t want either of them to get in trouble. Martin said he told a friend to report Metcalf dead and that he intended to turn himself in, but Wasilla police found him before he could.

“I wish Russell was still kicking,” Martin said. “He wouldn’t want to see me in trouble for this any more than I would want to see him in the grave.”

Martin was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter relatively early in the case, which is unusual in murder cases. Palmer District Attorney Roman Kalytiak confirmed late last year that such arraignments aren’t common, but said the evidence in the case was weak — the only person who knew what happened was Martin, and he could easily have made a self-defense claim.

In another somewhat unusual twist, both prosecutor Kerry Corliss and defense attorney Lyle Stohler agreed on what Martin’s sentence should be — 14 years with four suspended for 10 to serve.

“He is someone who is going to need to be supervised for a long time,” Corliss said. “The victim, the defendant’s best friend by all accounts, ended up dead at the defendant’s hands.”

She said that in his 14 years on the streets, Martin came to live a life spent entirely in a state of inebriation. He lived that way with Metcalf.

“They often got drunk and fought together,” Corliss said. “What happened this day wasn’t any different than what happened any other day, except the fight escalated and Mr. Metcalf was killed.”

For his part, Stohler said that sobriety should be the main goal in his client’s time behind bars.

“Obviously, I think alcohol played an enormous role in this,” Stohler said.

He described his client as remorseful.

“I know the person who probably misses Russell the most on this earth is John,” he said.

Superior Court Judge Eric Smith accepted the sentence that both sides had recommended.

“Mr. Martin is obviously very repentant, but I think your lawyer is right, the only way you’re going to get out of this is to quit drinking,” Smith said. “Otherwise it’s just going to continue to wreck your life.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.