TOMS RIVER, N.J. -- A 39-year-old Howell man said Tuesday he viciously punched a teenage girl who had accepted a ride in his car, killing her, because she asked him to stop smoking crack cocaine in front of her.
Jack Fuller said he punched 16-year-old Brittney Gregory "at least twice" in the head and continued to get high, even though the teen was unconscious and bleeding profusely.
Only after he finished smoking the cocaine did he check on the girl and by that time she was dead, he said.
Gregory went missing on July 11, 2004. Her body was found two weeks later in a shallow grave beneath a power line tower in Lakewood.
Responding to questions from his attorney, Fuller recounted the events of that night in pleading guilty to the murder before Superior Court Judge Vincent J. Grasso. The girl's parents and other relatives looked on, some weeping quietly.
Under a plea bargain he accepted a week before he was to go on trial, Fuller will face 30 years in prison without parole when he is sentenced on Jan. 13.
Brittney's mother, Deborah Gregory, who lived in Beachwood, said previously that Brittney had called her from her father's house in Brick and said she wanted a ride to her boyfriend's house. Her mother told Brittney that her sister could give her a ride if she waited about 45 minutes.
Fuller was a friend of Brittney's father, Joseph Dunn. He had stopped by looking for Dunn and learned he wasn't home. Fuller agreed to give Brittney a ride.
A police informant ultimately led authorities to Fuller.
A straight-A student, Brittney had just finished her sophomore year at Brick Township Memorial High School.
source: WNBC.com and the Associated Press
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