Eric Bent pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter in September 2020 stabbing case
May 17—PRINCETON — A man who was arrested in September 2020 and charged with second-degree murder after a stabbing several men at a Mercer County home pleaded guilty Monday to voluntary manslaughter.
Eric Arthur Bent, 32, of North Carolina and Ohio appeared before Circuit Court Judge William Sadler for a plea hearing. In February 2021, the Mercer County Grand Jury indicted Bent on charges including second-degree murder, malicious assault and grand larceny.
After Judge Sadler reminded Bent of his rights including the right to a jury trial, the right not to incriminate himself and the right to appeal to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals if convicted, he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, malicious assault and unlawful assault.
Voluntary manslaughter has a determinate sentence of three to 15 years in prison. Malicious assault carries a sentence of two to 10 years in prison, and unlawful assault has a sentence of one to five years imprisonment. The sentences will run consecutively.
Bent asked Sadler through his attorneys, Derrick Lefler and Joseph Harvey, how the state parole board would address the sentences. Taking a moment to calculate, Sadler said that Bent could face a minimum of six to seven years in prison and a maximum of 30 years. How much time he would serve in prison will be up to the parole board.
The court then asked Prosecuting Attorney Brian Cochran what the state's case would have been if Bent had been tried. Cochran said that on Sept. 26, 2020, Bent and other men at a Princeton-area home "were participating in the use of meth."
During Bent's preliminary hearing in October 2020, a detective testified about how deputies with the Mercer County Sheriff's Department were dispatched to a Cabell Street home near Princeton. One victim who fled to a home on Webster Street told deputies that "Arthur" had stabbed him, according to previous reports in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph.
Detective-Corporal M.S. Horn with the sheriff's department testified at the preliminary hearing that Freddie O'Dell, 57, of Princeton was found face down in "a large pool of blood" when deputies arrived at Cabell Street. Horn described the residence as "a local drug house."
O'Dell had five stab wounds in the center of his back, and a stab wound was found at his heart and his collar bone, Horn said. A serrated bread knife was found in his right hand.
A second stabbing victim, Robert "Bob" Fuller, was found sitting in a chair behind the house. Fuller was covered with blood and had a stab wound around a lung and other stab wounds, Horn said then.
Another victim, Derick Price, testified at the preliminary hearing that he ran from the house after Bent woke him up and attacked him with two knives. Price, who said he was covered with blood, fled all the way to Rogers Street where he flagged down a passing motorist who took him to Princeton Community Hospital.
Bent was found near the intersection of Brick Street and Rogers Street after a car was reported stolen at Webster Street was found. Deputies were about to start a search with help from a Princeton Police Department K-9 when Bent emerged from a wooded area. After being read his Miranda Rights at the sheriff's department, Bent said he stabbed the men and said it all "happened in a dream" and how the men seemed to be his children, Horn testified.
Lefler told Sadler at Monday's plea hearing that Bent had no specific recollection of that night's events.
Sentencing has been scheduled for July. Bent is being held at the Southern Regional Jail.
— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
