Father says ‘monster’ son deserves death for killing wheelchair-bound man with a pipe: 'I'm 100 percent for it'
The father of a 44-year-old man, accused of murdering an elderly man, has said his son deserves the death penalty if he is found guilty of the crime. The son, Charles Covey, is facing charges of deliberate homicide after the death of 65-year-old Roy Lee Nelson, a wheelchair-bound man, whose body was found last week on a trail in Missoula, Montana.
Covey, who is also known by the alias Jesse Nitcy, reportedly pushed Nelson out of his wheelchair, according to court records cited by the Missoulian newspaper. According to the court documents, witnesses allegedly heard "a hollow metal pipe being violently struck against something" multiple times. One witness reported finding the 65-year-old's body and seeing "a massive head wound with pieces of brain and blood" spattered on a concrete wall.
The suspected assailant's father, 62-year-old Michael Covey, told the news outlet that his son should definitely be executed if he has committed the crime. "I’m 100 percent for it (the death penalty) right now," he told the Missoulian. "Tomorrow… I might have a different heart. I don’t want this monster pampered. What he did is unforgivable. I definitely wanna do my part to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he added.
Covey, if convicted, faces life imprisonment, however, legal experts have told the newspaper that it is not yet clear whether the state could punish him by execution.
Deputy County Attorney Brian Lowney, in an email, wrote: “Based on the statutory scheme Montana currently has in place regarding the death penalty, it is unlikely that it is constitutional to seek the death penalty in Montana at this point. Case law from the United States Supreme Court in Hurst v. Florida, 577 US 92 (2016) holds that a jury must decide whether the death penalty is applicable for that sentence to be constitutionally imposed, which the statutory scheme in Montana does not currently provide for."
Covey also has previous convictions. He reportedly spent 17 years in prison for beating "some people half to death" — according to his father — and hijacking a vehicle. Lowney, in the court this week, said that Covey had an "extremely violent history," the newspaper reported. The suspected assailant is scheduled to return to court on December 7.
In a similar assault on an elderly earlier this year, a Detroit nursing home patient, who was brutally beaten by his 20-year-old roommate at the facility, died, according to his family. The brutal assault, which was captured on video, received widespread attention after President Donald Trump shared the video on Twitter and condemned the assault. The patient, identified as 75-year-old Norman Bledsoe, was a resident at the Westwood Nursing Center when he was assaulted by his roommate Jaden T. Hayden on May 15. The attack was allegedly filmed by Hayden on his cellphone and later posted on social media. Bledsoe reportedly suffered four broken fingers, broken ribs, and a broken jaw as a result of the attack.
Bledsoe's nephew, Kevin Bledsoe, in a statement on Monday morning, July 28, confirmed his death. It is, however, not yet clear whether Bledsoe's demise is linked to the May attack. Kevin said that his uncle had been depressed and was not eating properly post the attack. "His eating habits went downhill after (the alleged assault), and he lost quite a bit of weight," the nephew told The Detroit News.