A 27-year-old Juliaetta man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for the beating death of another man earlier this year.
Jared Mendez was sentenced Wednesday in Latah County 2nd District Court to four years fixed, including time served, and 11 years indeterminate in the Idaho Department of Correction.
Mendez pleaded guilty in July to voluntary manslaughter as part of a plea agreement in the killing of 48-year-old Christopher Vessells, also of Juliaetta.
Authorities say an unarmed an inebriated Vessells showed up at Mendez’s home in April. Mendez struck Vessells in the head with a metal baseball bat, knocking him unconscious.
Vessells was in a coma and died the following week. (Lewiston Tribune)
