Man admits killing BSU student

BOISE – A man accused of killing two people and linked to the wounding of a third during a 6,500-mile road trip in 2007 has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in one of the deaths.

John Delling entered his plea Wednesday in 4th District Court in the murder of Bradley Morse, a Boise State University student Delling met on Internet gaming sites. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors reduced the original charge of first-degree murder and agreed to drop a charge of theft and using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

Delling is still charged with first-degree murder in the fatal Moscow shooting of University of Idaho student David Boss, a former high school classmate. And investigators have linked Delling to a shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that wounded another former high school classmate, Jacob Thompson, but Delling has not been charged in that case. Thompson is scheduled to testify before 4th District Judge Deborah Bail in June, before she sentences Delling for Morse’s murder.

Investigators said Morse’s murder and the other crimes occurred during an erratic road trip spanning the Western states over several days in the spring of 2007. According to police, Thompson was shot March 20, 2007, in Tucson, Boss was killed March 31 in Moscow and Morse died April 2 outside of Boise. Delling was arrested in Sparks, Nev., the next day.

Delling, who was 21 at the time, met the 25-year-old Morse on Internet gaming sites and then used the Web to track him down, police have said.