Warning: This article contains graphic content
Dallas Smith was angry. Jerry Scott, 84, had kicked his grandson out of his Alexandria, Virginia, home. So a month later Smith, returned in the middle of the night with a handgun he made from parts bought online, went to a basement bedroom and shot at Scott six times.
Bullets hit the man in the head, chest and arm, but he was still alive, according to a medical examiner. So Smith charged him with a knife and tried to cut off his head, burying a piece of the homemade blade in his grandfather's neck.
He then slashed at Scott's face and scalp, according to a statement of facts read by Alexandria Commonwealth's Attorney Bryan Porter in circuit court Monday as Smith, 32, pleaded guilty to first degree murder.
The murder happened sometime between a late Saturday night and early Sunday morning last July, but Scott's body was not found by his daughter, Smith's aunt, until Monday. Nothing had been stolen, and while there was blood on the stairs and door to the basement bedroom there was no damage suggesting a break in. Smith's fingerprints were found in the bedroom where Scott was killed, and surveillance video repeatedly showed him near the house between 1 and 3 a.m. that night. He was arrested two days after the body was found, on July 25. According to the statement of facts, he was carrying a Glock recoil spring, a black ski mask and keys to a storage unit.