Vietnam Vet With Cancer Brutally Beaten to Death in ‘Unprovoked and Irrational’ Attack: Prosecutors

A Minnesota man pleaded guilty to murder last week after he allegedly beat an elderly Vietnam Vet to death in a June 2022 road rage incident.

The vet was traveling to a dialysis appointment when Leslie Shawn Sanders, 53, cut in front of him, hitting his SUV, according to the Rice County Attorney's Office.

At the next intersection, Sanders reportedly got out of his still-moving pickup truck and began beating the 79-year-old victim as he sat in his car.

Larry Myers endured multiple facial injuries, including a fractured nose, fractures below his eyes, and cuts on his forehead and mouth.

He died in the hospital nine days later after doctors determined the brain trauma he sustained was too severe for him to ever recover.

Myers, who lived in Faribault, about 50 miles south of Minneapolis, served in the Air Force from 1964 to 1968, becoming a Staff Sergeant, according to his obituary.

Last year, his daughter told local outlet WCCO-TV he had suffered multiple health injuries while in the service and was battling cancer at the time he was attacked.

"He was fighting. That would be the best way to put it," Jennifer Murphy told the outlet. "He wasn't just giving up, he was fighting."

"This was a brutal, unprovoked, and irrational assault on another person," John Fossum, who was then the elected attorney for Rice County, said at the time.

In exchange for a guilty plea, Sanders was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison. The sentencing is expected to take place on October 12.