EVERETT — Danny DuBeau never gave up trying to beat his addiction.
He wanted to be better for his 11-year-old daughter, the love of his life. DuBeau, 30, was robbed of one more chance to find his way back from drugs, his family said Tuesday. He didn’t get another chance to be the man he wanted to be. Future milestones, like seeing his daughter graduate from high school, or walking her down the aisle at her wedding, were taken from him.
“He was really loved. He didn’t deserve to die the way he did. No one does,” his aunt Dana Anderson said.
The man who took DuBeau’s life, Kenny Tate, was sentenced Tuesday to at least 30 years in prison. Tate, 40, pleaded guilty last month to murder, admitting he strangled, beat and raped DuBeau on Dec. 2 at the Everett halfway house that Tate managed for his step-brother.
He told detectives that he lured DuBeau to his room with methamphetamine. Tate said he planned to have sex with DuBeau because he hadn’t paid for the drugs.
DuBeau declined his sexual advances. That’s when Tate strangled him with a belt and punched him in the head until he stopped struggling. Tate then raped the younger man.
He turned himself in the next day, confessing to Everett detectives and justifying the murder. He was doing DuBeau a favor because he was slow, Tate said.
Tate sobbed Tuesday, saying he deserved the death penalty for killing DuBeau.
“I feel so bad for this family, the pain they’re suffering,” Tate said.
He told Superior Court Judge Thomas Wynne that he is confused by his actions and doesn’t understand how it happened.
“I really wanted the death penalty for this. Eye for an eye. That’s how I was raised,” Tate said.
Wynne didn’t have the discretion to sentence Tate to die. The judge agreed, though, that Tate deserved at least 30 years in prison for his “brutal, callous, predatory and revolting” actions.
Tate faces a potential life sentence. He admitted that the murder was motivated by his desire to rape DuBeau. That means once he serves his time he will have to convince the state’s Indeterminate Sentence Review Board that he’s safe to be released.
“He cannot be trusted to walk among the civilized again,” Kelly DuBeau Jr. wrote of his brother’s killer.
After Tuesday’s hearing Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Matt Baldock answered questions for DuBeau’s family. They were concerned that the horrific details of the crime wouldn’t reach the state board when they decide Tate’s fate in the future. It’s hard to shake those details, to wonder if DuBeau was afraid.
The family spoke about needing regulations at halfway houses that are advertised as clean and sober shelters. Two months after DuBeau’s murder the owner of a nonprofit that operates another Everett group home for recovering addicts was arrested by federal authorities for investigation of drug trafficking.
“Someone needs to care about these places,” the slain man’s father said.
Kelly DuBeau Jr. offered his thanks to Baldock and Everett police detectives. It’s hard to imagine seeing the things they do, hearing about the horrific things people do to each other, he said. He called them his family’s heroes.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley.
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