Inset: Shiloh Leutu in court (KSNV). Background: The Las Vegas food bank where Shiloh Leutu beat a 60-year-old man who was defending his girlfriend (Google Maps).
A Nevada man is headed to prison after he admitted to beating a woman's boyfriend to death as the victim tried to shield her from the attacker and another individual. The pair was allegedly "insulting and talking badly" to the victim's girlfriend after she didn't have a cigarette to give them.
Shiloh Leutu was sentenced to serve between three and eight years in prison after he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in August, according to court records.
The man Leutu killed, Scott Dennis, was in line at a Las Vegas food bank on July 9 when the 38-year-old and the other individual, who was never arrested or charged, asked Dennis' girlfriend for a cigarette, according to an arrest report obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal and local NBC affiliate KSNV.
The woman told them she didn't smoke, so Leutu and the man with him allegedly began accosting and ridiculing her for it. Dennis had stepped out of line to smoke, saw what was going on and then returned to shield his girlfriend from Leutu.
Police used witness statements and surveillance video to determine that Leutu attacked and fatally beat Dennis outside the food bank. Police said he kept hitting and kicking Dennis as he tried to get up off the ground.
"Detectives learned that the victim and a friend were in a line waiting for a business [the food bank] … to open," a police press release said in July. "A male approached the friend and started yelling at her. The victim stepped in and the male struck him in the face causing him to fall to the ground. A second male jumped in and the two continued to beat the victim until the crowd could stop them."
Leutu and the other man both left, and Leutu was tracked down and taken into custody on July 15.
Court records show that Leutu was originally charged with open murder and battery of an older person resulting in substantial bodily harm, but the Clark County District Attorney's Office later decided not to pursue the murder charge.
Leutu allegedly told detectives that Dennis had put him and the other suspect in headlocks after Dennis hit and kicked them. Surveillance footage, however, showed that Leutu was the aggressor.