Photo: Missoula County Sheriff’s Department
A Montana man accused of killing a 15-year-old girl and 24-year-old man before dismembering theirbodies and placing them into acidhas pleaded guilty.
Augustus Standingrock pleaded guilty to one count of deliberate homicide and one count of accountability to deliberate homicide Friday morning during a status conference hearing at Missoula District Court, a court official tells PEOPLE.
Hefaces a life sentenceas part of the plea agreement, according to local station KBZK.
Standingrock was set to go on trial in January and had been charged with co-defendant Tiffanie Pierce in 2017 in the fatal stabbing of Jackson Wiles, 24, and 15-year-old Marilyn Pickett. They had been dismembered and their bodies were placed in plastic tubs filled with acid, theMissoulianreports.
During the hearing, Standingrock admitted to stabbing Wiles before handing the knife to Pierce, knowing she would fatally stab Pickett.
While a motive for Pickett’s killing remains unclear, Standingrock claimed he killed Wiles after Wiles sexually assaulted a young girl Standingrock was close with, theMissoulianreports.
Augustus Standingrock.Tom Bauer/The Missoulian/AP
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According to the complaint, Pierce allegedly told the roommate that she and Standingrock had stabbed a girl and the body was in the basement.
Later that day, Pierce went to the roommate’s work and allegedly confessed that she and Standingrock “killed a couple people last night,” according to the informant’s account in the complaint.
That account adds that Pierce allegedly stated that Standingrock had brought the people over, taken them into the basement and then attacked one of them — and that when the second person tried to get away, “[Pierce] got the other one,” the complaint alleges.
Missoula County Sheriff’s Department
Pierce’s trial is set for March, according to theMissoulian.She haspleaded not guilty, NBC News reports. Her attorney could not be reached for comment Monday.
source: people.com
