A suspect accused of killing a man during an alleged drug deal in the Federal Way area and dumping the body in a ditch in 2021 has been sentenced to prison.
On Aug. 22, Robert Nelson III, 27, was sentenced to 15 years and four months in prison for murder in the second degree with a deadly weapon, with 60 of those months coming from the mandatory enhancement because a firearm was used during the crime.
Prosecutors say Nelson killed Uso Hale during a drug deal on Nov. 11, 2021, then put his body in a ditch about five minutes away on Military Road just off South 320th Street. Originally, the state was prosecuting Nelson for first-degree premeditated murder, but the jury found Nelson guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder with a deadly weapon. Following the judge’s sentencing, Nelson’s attorney filed a motion for appeal.
The maximum penalty possible was a life sentence. The 183-month sentence that Judge Elizabeth J. Berns issued was considered a low-end sentence. Nelson must serve 36 months of community custody as ordered by the court following his 183-month sentence. Before this conviction, Nelson had a clean criminal record.
Family testimony
Before Judge Berns announced the sentencing, Hale’s sister and two nieces addressed the court, speaking about the effect of Hales’s death on their lives. Additionally, Hales’s eldest daughter spoke with The Mirror.
Hale’s eldest daughter, Ulexus Hale, 23, said when her dad wasn’t in prison, he always tried his best to support her and her siblings. She said she can’t justify what he did in the streets, but everything Uso Hale did was to better himself and to better his family.
“He was trying to just get himself together. When I first started reconnecting with my dad, my little sister was born, and I had seen him doing a lot better. One day I spent the night at his house, and it was fun. I had seen him just trying to do so much better. I still knew my dad did certain things I did’t really want to know, but I knew about,” Ulexus Hale said. “I can’t justify, but things happen. And I know, prior to this incident happening, I don’t think he wanted to do what he did, and I don’t think it was intentional to do what he did. My dad, I know he’s a very respectable person no matter what he’s doing. So I don’t know the whole story with the case, but I was told, he was going back and trying to, like, justify what happened with the exchange before he had got shot.”
What Ulexus is referencing is a drug deal that was listed in the charging documents that had allegedly happened a day prior to the murder, in which Nelson had originally not received his drugs after giving Uso Hale the money for the deal. But, Nelson ended up receiving his drugs for the first deal, and then the next day they were going to meet for a second drug deal, and that is when the murder happened, according to charging documents.
Ulexus said she didn’t attend the trial and hear the details, but when she found out what the sentence was, she felt like justice was served for her dad. Ulexus Hale said she thinks her dad would want her to forgive Nelson.
“I think in the stage in his life before he passed, he was very forgiving. He was more about moving forward and trying to learn from his mistakes and to be that great parent. And I think he would want us to especially just be blessed that we are here to tell his story,” Ulexus Hale said. “Even though this happened to him, and he did it, I don’t think he would want us to have a hate bone in our body. Hate wasn’t my dad’s forte. He didn’t want us to hate, he always wanted us to be good, do good, and just be the best, even though we don’t have the most.”
Details of the case
The state alleged that Nelson killed Uso Hale via gunshots while in Nelson’s vehicle during a drug deal at the Mobil gas station in the city limits of Federal Way at 32003 Military Road South in Auburn on Nov. 11, 2021. The state alleged that following the shooting, Nelson drove about five minutes away from the gas station to a residential, rural area and then dumped Hale’s body in a ditch, where Hale was found about 15 hours later by locals on a walk.
The prosecuting attorney, Logan Bryant, alleged during the closing arguments of the trial that Nelson killed Hale for pills. He said that Nelson knew Hale was bringing pills when they were going to meet, and he wanted them and had a different idea about how he was going to pay for them. Bryant said in his argument that phone records show that from Nov. 10 to Nov. 11, Nelson was calling and searching for Hale because he wanted to find him, kill him, and take his pills.
Nelson’s attorney, Tim Lewis, argued the killing was done in self-defense, citing that the witness who brought Hale to the alleged drug deal — who said he was like an uncle to Hale — said Hale showed him a gun and said, “I got this on me,” before entering Nelson’s vehicle. The witness said soon after, several popping noises from two firearms were heard coming from the vehicle where Nelson allegedly shot Hale 11 times, according to the documents. Additionally, Lewis said that every bullet that was found on Hales’s body had a copper jacket; meanwhile, the one bullet that hit the gas station was silver, and a 9mm pistol was found less than a mile away from Hale’s body, which contained silver bullets.
