A week before he was to stand trial for the murder of the former Boy Scout leader he says molested him as a child, a California man has reached a deal to plead no contest to voluntary manslaughter, a charge that will bring anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison. Aaron Vargas, 32, shot neighbor Darrell McNeill last year; the local community has rallied around Vargas as four more sex abuse allegations against McNeill surfaced.
Vargas said McNeill molested him for years beginning when he was 11; after the abuse ended, McNeill tormented him by continuing to seek contact. Because Vargas was drunk when he killed McNeill, prosecutors expected a jury would see the slaying as an "emotional decision rather than an intentional first-degree murder." The abuse "could've been stopped a long time ago but the police didn't take me seriously," said McNeill's ex-wife, who told police in the 1990s that he'd molested her son, told CNN.
(More Aaron Vargas stories.)