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FARMINGTON — A Clearfield man who murdered his elderly grandparents in his family's garage in November 2022 could potentially spend the rest of his life in prison.
Jeremy Dwayne Belt, 28, was ordered Monday to serve two consecutive terms of 15 years to life in prison after pleading guilty in July to the killing of Thomas Walker, 87, and Janice Walker, 85.
As part of a plea deal, Belt pleaded guilty to two reduced counts of murder, a first-degree felony. He had been charged with two counts of aggravated murder, a capital offense. Charges of possession of a gun by a restricted person, a third-degree felony; drug possession, a class A misdemeanor; plus assault and criminal mischief, class B misdemeanors, were dismissed in exchange for his pleas.
Belt was also sentenced to a year in jail for assault, reduced from a second-degree felony to a class A misdemeanor, as part of a plea deal in a separate case. He was on pretrial release at the time of the murders, according to court records, after attacking his life-in girlfriend and choking her until she was unconscious.
On Nov. 23, 2022, Belt got into an argument with his mother, saying he believed his grandparents were trying to hurt him.
Belt told his mother "that he could feel an electrical current in the room and asked her if she could feel it. During that discussion, he became upset with his mother and (he) kicked her in the face," court documents state.
Belt had smoked meth the night before, and took marijuana and Xanax earlier in the day, according to the plea, and officers found marijuana and mushrooms in his room.
The man's mother left the house after being kicked in the face. It was the day before Thanksgiving. Belt, then 26, confronted his grandparents, and when they got their things to try to leave, he followed them into the garage.
He began hitting their car with what police have described as both a letter opener and a small sledgehammer. The couple couldn't leave, because "Belt cut the motor wire for the garage door, trapping them inside," court documents say.
Investigators say Belt kicked his grandparents in the chest, took a small sledgehammer and attacked them with it, hitting them in the head.
They both fell to the ground, and could not rise when their grandson went to his bedroom, took out his .22 caliber rifle and returned to the garage. "He first shot his grandmother in the head," the plea documents say. Thomas Walker was still on the ground as Belt went back into the house, got another round, chambered it, and returned to kill the 87-year-old.
The victims' 60-year-old daughter, Belt's mother, returned to the house later and opened the garage to find her parents dead. She called police, and helped talk her son out of the house.
Police said Thomas and Janice Walker had been members of the Clearfield City Citizen's Patrol for more than a decade, volunteering numerous hours to the community until 2019.
Family and friends remembered the couple as "faithful and selfless," saying they were "both that quiet type servant that was never seen, but made everything better."
Both were born in Colorado, and were married for 64 years. Thomas Walker was a major in the Air Force who served at Hill Air Force Base.
