CONWAY — A teenager pleaded guilty Tuesday to the robbery and killing of a Conway couple who served as his legal guardians for years as part of a deal that requires him to offer testimony in the cases of three other teens charged in the deaths.
Justin Staton, 15, wiped away tears as he took the stand to tell Faulkner County Circuit Court Judge Troy Braswell that he understood that the agreement came with a recommended 35-year prison sentence.
Attorneys said Staton will remain in a juvenile correction facility until he is 16 years old and then be transferred to the Arkansas Department of Correction. He will be eligible for parole after serving 70 percent of his sentence, which is more than 24 years.
Staton pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, which were reduced from capital murder. He also pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery, theft by threat and abuse of a corpse in the July 2015 deaths of Robert and Patricia Cogdell.
The Cogdells weren't Staton's biological grandparents, but they raised the boy even after discovering via genetic testing in 2008 that their son, Robert Shane Cogdell, was not Staton's father.
"I hope every day for the rest of your life, you think about them," Braswell told Staton. "Because they loved you and took care of you. ... And the thanks you gave them was murder."
Staton was not eligible for the death penalty because he was 14 at the time of the crime, but he faced the possibility of life in prison.
Staton looked up during the hearing and answered the judge's questions in a clear voice. But when asked if he had anything to say to the court, he wept again and whispered something inaudible.
The deal also required Staton to provide the state with the password to an iPod that prosecutor Hugh Alan Finkelstein said contained "substantial evidence" against Hunter Drexler, another teen who faces capital murder charges in the case.
Finkelstein said the iPod was used to send messages to an iPhone police obtained from Drexler, but which they have been unable to unlock. A separate prepaid phone prosecutors say was purchased with $700 of the $3,000 taken from the Cogdells has not been recovered, according to Finkelstein.
Prosecutors allege the pair robbed and shot the Cogdells at their Conway home, then dumped their bodies in a wooded area nearby. Two other teens, Connor Atchley and Anastasia Roberts, both 17, are charged as adults with first-degree murder and theft by receiving.
Prosecutors allege three of the teens came up with the plan to kill the Cogdells while they were in a juvenile detention center together.
Read Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.