20-year sentence for fatal stomping of man in Tumwater

Published 7:20 pm Thursday, December 29, 2011

TUMWATER — A 22-year-old transient has been sentenced to 20 years in the fatal beating and stomping of a 60-year-old man attacked in Tumwater.

Michael Miles was sentenced Wednesday. He earlier pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Ronald Smith’s death. Miles said he’d walked by Smith and become “enraged” by a comment the older man made.

Tumwater police found Smith lying unconscious on a street in early July, so badly hurt that detectives initially weren’t sure whether he had been assaulted or hit by a car. He died several weeks later in a hospital.

According to court records, Miles said he was “highly intoxicated” at the time of the attack.