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CEDAR CITY — A man who brutally kicked and stomped his roommate to death in Cedar City was sent to prison Tuesday.
Brandon Thomas Sappington, 33, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, a second-degree felony, and was sentenced to one to 15 years in prison. He was originally charged with murder, a first-degree felony.
A consecutive sentence of up to five years was also ordered for assault by a prisoner, a third-degree felony, for his attacks on officers as he was taken into custody.
An additional charge of assault by a prisoner, a third-degree felony, and interference with an arresting officer, a class B misdemeanor, were dismissed as part of a plea deal.
Sappington was a transient and had been living with Bryan Mahue Mellor, 59, in Mellor's Cedar City apartment at the time of the Oct. 9, 2013, attack, according to court records.
Police were called to the apartment and found Mellor badly injured outside the building, 470 S. 75 West, and a bloody Sappington nearby, charging documents state. Witnesses told police Sappington had repeatedly kicked Mellor's head into a steel railing outside the apartment and jumped and stomped on his head and torso.
Mellor was flown to University Medical Center in Las Vegas, where doctors determined he had suffered multiple skull fractures. He later died from the injuries, and charges against Sappington were elevated from aggravated assault to murder.
Sappington was found mentally competent to face the charges in March 2015. According to a competency evaluation filed in 5th District Court, Sappington reported he became deeply depressed and "lost touch with reality" about three years before the attack.
In the months before he assaulted Mellor, Sappington was unemployed and "stressed" about not having a job or money, according to the evaluation. He was concerned about students moving into Mellor's apartment building, which is located near Southern Utah University, the evaluator wrote.
Sappington told evaluators "it was all happening so fast" and that he was struggling to understand who and what in his life was real. He wondered if he was "sleepwalking or something, it was almost a dream," according to the report.
