A remorseful Brooklyn man has started his reduced prison sentence for beating an cancer-stricken elderly man to death on his doorstep nearly four years ago.
Vaughn Keith, 37, cried out ‘I’m not a beast’ as he surrendered to court on Friday, nearly four years after punching 69-year-old Willie Davis outside his brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
The tragic incident came after Davis, who was disoriented due to cancer and diabetes, tried to open the front door of Keith’s home, thinking it was his own, on January 30, 2014.
Vaughn Keith, 37, cried out ‘I’m not a beast’ as he surrendered to court on Friday, nearly four years after punching 69-year-old Willie Davis outside his brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
Keith, the city sanitation worker who also worked in real estate, punched Davis twice, causing him to fall down the building’s steps and hit his head on the concrete.
The then-33-year-old had thought that Davis was breaking into his home at the time, according to The Ink. He later learned that Davis lived two doors down, in a similarly colored building.
Davis died five months after the altercation from bronchial pneumonia, skin ulcers and seizures that led to cardiac arrest.
The Medical Examiner’s office said that Davis would not have suffered from pneumonia or skin ulcers if it weren’t for the long-term hospitalization that began with the blunt-force trauma injury from Davis’s punch.
Keith was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault in July 2015. And sentenced to ten years in prison.
The tragic incident came after Davis, who was disoriented due to cancer and diabetes, tried to open the front door of Keith’s home, thinking it was his own, on January 30, 2014. Their street is pictured above
In October, however, his sentence was reduced down to two to six years. The Appellate Division Second Department cited ‘a number of mitigating factors’.
Keith broke down in tears as he surrendered to the court on Friday, according to the New York Daily News.
‘I am not a beast. I am not a criminal. This is not my character,’ the city sanitation worker said. ‘I realize now I looked at the situation wrong. I reacted wrong.’
He had argued in his trial that he acted in self defence when he punched Davis.
‘I have always been sorry to him, his family. I understand how they feel I am sorry to any and everyone,’ he said.