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A 25-year-old man has pleaded guilty to reckless homicide charges in the May shooting deaths of two men at a LaGrange home.
Initially charged with two counts of voluntary manslaughter, Cory A. Waltmire pleaded guilty Dec. 4 in LaGrange Superior Court to two lesser reckless homicide charges.
Whether he shot Jason Smith, 26, of Fort Wayne and Shaun A. Zimmerman, 25, of Angola was never in question.
Shortly after he shot them inside his LaGrange home, Waltmire went to the nearby home of a police officer, saying he shot the two men after they beat him.
According to court documents, Waltmire drove to a Steuben County junkyard after Smith called him, accusing him of stealing marijuana from him. After Waltmire arrived at the junkyard, the two men beat him and threatened him with a knife. Both men were larger than Waltmire, and Smith had a background in mixed martial arts, court documents said.
After they beat him, Waltmire said he would give them the marijuana if they drove him back to his house in the 200 block of West Central Avenue in LaGrange.
Waltmire ran upstairs and grabbed a gun, shooting Smith, who was waiting downstairs. Zimmerman had been in a car outside and came into the house where Waltmire shot him as well. Zimmerman died at the scene, and Smith was flown to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne, where he later died, according to court documents.
Waltmire faces no more than 12 years in prison when he is sentenced in early January, prosecutors said.
