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Police: Man confesses to 1987 slaying

BILLINGS, Mont., April 24 (UPI) -- A Montana man has been charged with murder after confessing to the 1987 slaying of an Oklahoma county commissioner, authorities say.

Clifford Eagle, 53, turned himself into police in Billings, Mont., last week for the shooting death of Leo Boyd Reasnor, who was a commissioner in Haskell County in eastern Oklahoma, The Oklahoman reported Monday.

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Eagle, who was listed on the sex offender registry in Montana after pleading guilty to rape charges in 2003, told authorities he had to get "something off his chest," court records show.

Reasnor, 49, was found dead inside his pickup on June 25, 1987, by his son and son-in-law in rural southeastern Oklahoma. He had a single gunshot wound to his head.

Eagle told authorities he and another man, Vince Allen Johnson, were on a county road in Haskell County when they encountered Reasnor.

The commissioner accused Johnson of "stealing some of his property" shortly before Eagle shot his handgun at Reasnor, Eagle said, adding that the victim was "going for a gun," and that he thought Johnson "may have fired" a gun as well.

Johnson was executed in Oklahoma in 2001 for the murder of Shirley Mooneyham. He also was convicted of killing his roommate in 1979.

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Prosecutors are seeking to extradite Eagle from Montana on a murder complaint.

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