Man gets 14 years for Browning playground beating death

A Browning man who killed a childhood friend on the Browning Elementary School playground in October 2012 was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris to more than 14 years in federal prison.

Victor Vielle, 31, pleaded guilty in April to a second-degree homicide charge in the death of David “Josh” RedHead, 33. After prosecutors and Vielle’s public defender agreed that the killing was reckless but unintentional, Morris handed down a 170-month prison sentence, to be followed by five years of federal probation.

On Oct. 6, 2012, a Saturday, both men — said to be friends since childhood — had been drinking when they got into a wrestling match at a Browning residence, court filings say.

After being told to leave, they apparently walked together to the elementary school, where a surveillance camera captured Vielle brutally beating RedHead.

Vielle reportedly left RedHead at the scene, allowing him to stumble to a nearby house. He was then transported to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead as a result of a brain bleed.

With his face and sweatshirt covered in blood, Vielle also apparently bragged to several people in Browning that he had beat up RedHead in the hours following the assault, saying that that “I knocked the (expletive) out of (him)” and demonstrating how he had kicked RedHead like a football.

A Tribune obituary from Oct. 13, 2012, reported that Redhead was a Browning oil rig worker and passed away Oct. 9 at Kalispell Regional Medical Center. He was survived by four daughters and a son.

At Vielle’s sentencing, RedHead’s sister Natalie MadPlume spoke briefly, in tears.

“You put my mom in a very bad depression,” she said, adding she was glad Vielle took responsibility for the crime by pleading guilty. “She can’t even stand to look at you.”

Vielle’s public defender, Van Arvanetes, said his client had grown up surrounded by violence on the Blackfeet Reservation, including an attempt by his father to kill his mother when he was 5 years old.

Over the course of his life, Arvanetes said, Vielle has endured repeated incidents of child abuse by his father, multiple stab wounds, at least one motor vehicle accident and nearly freezing to death after walking out of a boarding school.

At the time of the beating, Vielle was living in a burned-out trailer without electricity, Arvanetes said.

Vielle’s criminal record includes a lengthy list of assaults, including punching and strangling a girlfriend while a restraining order was in effect and hitting a child with a phone, prosecutor Ryan Weldon said.

“It was only a matter of time before an assault ended with a fate similar to the instant offense,” Weldon wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Weldon, however, agreed with Arvanetes that there wasn’t evidence that Vielle meant to cause RedHead’s death. “But he certainly acted with reckless disregard for human life,” Weldon argued.

Allan Vielle Jr., who identified himself as Victor Vielle’s brother, also spoke Thursday in his defense.

“We all grew up in a real violent place,” he said, saying that their mother was almost killed multiple times.

“My brother is a good guy,” Allan Vielle said, saying that he struggles to cope with what he saw growing up. “Sometimes his alcoholism gets the best of him.”

In handing down Vielle’s sentence, Morris recommended that he pursue alcohol abuse and mental health treatment while imprisoned. Vielle will also be required to pay $1,044.54 in restitution to RedHead’s family.

RedHead’s death was a “senseless” tragedy, the judge said.

“Too often, life is cheap on the reservation,” Morris said. “I’m not sure how to change that, but promoting respect for the law is a small start.”