John Allen was sentenced to death by the State of Arizona for the murder of a child. John Allen along with his wife Sammantha Allen would put a ten year old child, Ame Deal, in a plastic storage container and shut the lid. The child who had been abused for years would suffocate and die. John Allen and Sammantha Allen were both convicted and sentenced to death.
ASPC Eyman, Browning Unit PO Box 3400 JOHN M. ALLEN 323167 Florence, AZ 85132 United States
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John Allen was given the death sentence today for the 2011 murder of 10-year-old Ame Deal as he and his wife became the first couple to be sentenced to die in Arizona, according to the state’s Department of Corrections.
In August, Sammantha Allen became the first woman sent to death row by a Maricopa County jury since 2004. Eva Dugan is the first and only female executed in Arizona, in 1930, for killing a man she worked for in Pima County. She had been married five times, and all her husbands had reportedly disappeared.
This afternoon, none of the jurors looked at John Allen as they filed into court stone-faced after finishing deliberation for the penalty phase of the trial. He was convicted of first-degree murder last week.
Then Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Erin O’Brien Otis sentenced Allen to death by lethal injection, adding at least 36 years in prison for child abuse and conspiracy to commit child abuse. Allen stared at his hands but did not react. One woman gasped and lowered her head.
After a pausing a long minute, Allen addressed the judge.
“I want to say I’m sorry,” he said, breaking down.
“What happened was an accident. I’m an idiot. I’m a jerk. It was an accident. I’m sorry to Ame. I’m sorry to her family. I’m sorry to my family. I shamed all of them.”
Two women in his family start sobbing. Allen fought through tears throughout and could not get up from the table. He had his head in his hands, sobbing as a circle of bailiffs and attorneys hovered around him. He remained like that for five minutes after the judge left the bench.
“In my entire career, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a worse case,” Judge Otis said after the verdict was read.
“This was one of the most unnecessary deaths of a child I’ve ever seen.”
Family members declined comment. As Allen was led away, they clung to each other in twos and threes, sobbing.
During Allen’s trial and in court documents, the image of a living hell emerged about the house in southwest Phoenix. The evidence showed kids had been treated to routine belt lashings and paddling with the “butt buster,” but that Ame was singled out for worse treatment.
When police asked Sammantha Allen what her driving moral belief was, she said, “Honor thy mother and father.” She had acted out of a misguided sense of family loyalty, her lawyer told that jury.
Stoltzmann and Ame’s grandmother, Judith Deal, had already been sentenced to lengthy prison terms on child-abuse convictions; 24 years and 10 years, respectively. Ame’s father, David Deal, was sentenced to 14 years for attempted child abuse.
The family’s story has been told many times in many courts over six years, but in the end, the ordeal to find justice in 2011 death of “the girl in the box” ended the way it all began. With responsibility.
Ame’s family thought padlocking her in a footlocker was the best way for her to take responsibility when they said she took food and lied about it. On the day she died, she’d been accused of taking a Popsicle without permission.
Because of such twisted reasoning, five adults who were supposed to care for her have now been convicted of murder, child abuse, or both. John Allen’s trial, like those before, was heart-wrenching and disturbing.
Ame, who weighed just 59 pounds only three weeks before her 11th birthday and measured 48 inches in height, died in a plastic storage tub 31 inches long. It was July 11, 2011, and the tub was put in a room with no air conditioning.
The thermometer never dipped below 95. John and Sammantha Allen, went to bed, planning to check on her. They didn’t. They took responsibility, but disregarded it.
The next morning, Ame’s lips were blue. It took half an hour before somebody in the squalid, overcrowded house near 35th Avenue and Broadway Road, overrun by cockroaches and stinking of urine, called 911. Ame died of suffocation, complicated by heat exhaustion and dehydration, the autopsy later showed. She cooked in the box.
In a videotaped interview with police, John Allen explained that he put Ame in the box, but Sammantha said the girl could get out. So, he says on the tape played for the jury, he went to the backyard, took a padlock off the fence, and locked the footlocker with Ame inside as Sammantha watched.
When police arrived, kids told them one of the younger children in the house, which held as many as 24 people at one time, locked Ame inside the box during a game of hide-and-seek. The younger girl liked to lock things and giggle.
The Allens later repeated this story. John Allen penned his thoughts in his own, clear, handwriting the morning of July 12, 2011, in a spiral notebook that police found. “Ame found passed away in box. They (the kids) were playing hide-and-go-seek. We believe she fell asleep and suffocated,” he wrote.
Jose Acuna-Valenzuela was sentenced to death by the State of Arizona for the murder of a man. According to court documents Jose Acuna-Valenzuela would shoot and kill a man who had earlier testified against him in another criminal case. Jose Acuna-Valenzuela would fire several shots into a vehicle killing the vehicle and severely injuring his passenger. Jose Acuna-Valenzuela would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
Last Name First Name Middle Initial ACUNA-VALENZUELAJ OSE A
Gender Height (inches)Weight Hair Color MALE 73 204 BLACK
Eye Color Ethnic Origin Custody Class Admission BROWN MEXICAN AMERICAN Close/Moderate 10/06/2014
Projected Eligible Release Date Prison Release Date Release Type Death SENTENCE EXPIRATION
Most Recent Location As of Date Complex Unit Last Movement Status FLORENCE ASPC-F CENTRAL D/RW 07/20/2017 ACTIVE
Jose Acuna-Valenzuela More News
In August 2011, Edgar S. and his girlfriend Perla M. went to a local Baskin-Robbins to get ice cream. They saw Jose Acuna-Valenzuela, who had previously been Edgar’s friend. In 2008, Edgar had testified against Acuna during a criminal proceeding in which Acuna was sentenced to prison. Thereafter, their relationship soured.
When Jose Acuna-Valenzuela saw the couple inside Baskin-Robbins, he looked at them twice, his eyes widened, and he walked toward an exit door and yelled at Edgar, “I told you I didn’t want to [expletive] see you.” Once outside, Acuna saw Sandra P., a friend from high school, who was running errands in the same shopping complex. Acuna appeared upset while talking with Sandra, saying (about Perla) that she “told me that she hadn’t seen him, that she wasn’t talking to him no more,” and she “lied to me,” and (about Edgar) that “I did prison time for him.” Sandra offered to help Acuna, reassuring him that she would support him in a fight against Perla.
After Edgar and Perla left the Baskin-Robbins and got into Perla’s car, Edgar said, “Baby, he’s coming.” Over her right shoulder, Perla saw Jose Acuna-Valenzuela running and firing a gun at her vehicle. Bullets shattered the car window and struck Edgar. Edgar tried to get out of the vehicle while Acuna continued to run behind the car and shoot at Perla. Acuna then left the scene in Sandra’s car. Edgar sustained multiple bullet wounds, and Perla was hit in her upper back. She survived, ultimately undergoing two surgeries. Edgar died from his injuries.
Jose Acuna-Valenzuela was convicted after trial of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder, discharge of a firearm at a structure, and misconduct involving weapons. The jury found two aggravating circumstances: (1) that Acuna had been previously convicted for another serious offense (the attempted first degree murder of Perla); and (2) that he murdered Edgar in retaliation for testimony in a court proceeding. A.R.S.
Jodi Arias was a woman from California who would be convicted of the murder of her on and off again boyfriend Travis Alexander in Utah.
According to court documents Jodi Arias would stage a burglary at her Grandparents home in California where a gun was among the items missing.
On June 4, 2008 Travis Alexander would be brutally killed inside of his Utah home. Alexander had been stabbed over two dozen times, shot and his throat had been slit. Jodi Arias would be arrested and charged with the murder.
Once in custody Jodi Arias would give a number of different stories to what happened to Travis Alexander (1) They were robbed and the burglars had killed Alexander and attacked her (2) That she was not in Utah at the time of the murder and had not seen Alexander in months (3) Jodi was being attacked by Travis and killed him in self defense.
Jodi Arias trial turned into a media circus and she would take the stand where she would testify for eighteen days. Eventually she would be convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Jodi Arias 2021 Information
Last Name First Name Middle Initial ARIAS JODI A
Gender Height (inches)Weight Hair Color FEMALE 65 125 BROWN
Eye Color Ethnic Origin Custody Class Admission BROWN CAUCASIAN Medium/Low 04/13/2015
Projected Eligible Release Date Prison Release Date Release Type Natural Life SENTENCE EXPIRATION
Most Recent Location As of Date Complex Unit Last Movement Status PERRYVILLE ASPC-PV LUMLEY MDM 05/06/2020 ACTIVE
Jodi Arias Videos
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From the start of their courtship, friends say, Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander had a potent chemistry.
Arias, 26, was a blonde, beautiful and seemingly carefree aspiring photographer. Alexander was a 29-year-old motivational speaker, salesman and devout Mormon.
Friends said the connection was instant when they met.
“She was really excited about the relationship. She loved how funny he was, how much fun they would have together. Travis loved to take adventures and do different things,” said Alexander’s friend Sky Lovingier Hughes.
Although they lived in different states — he was in Mesa, Arizona, and she was in Palm Desert, California — they maintained a long-distance relationship for a few months and would meet at the Murrieta, California, home of Lovingier Hughes and her then-husband Chris Hughes.
But Alexander’s friends told “20/20” that they started noticing red flags with Arias early on in the relationship. They said they’d alerted Alexander to their concerns and that they’d even grown concerned for his safety as things grew toxic and volatile between the two.
“I started seeing things that were just disturbing,” Lovingier Hughes said. “I said, ‘Travis, I’m afraid we’re gonna find you chopped up in her freezer.’ … From very early on, she was completely obsessed with him.”
Alexander was found dead on June 9, 2008, more than a year after he and Arias had connected, and after those close to Alexander believed the relationship was finally over. He’d been stabbed multiple times and had a gunshot to the head.
The murder was a shock to friends and family, and the scintillating details that came out of the case kept the story in the media for years as Arias, authorities’ prime suspect, awaited trial. She was eventually convicted of his murder.
Arias and her lawyers are now appealing that conviction, alleging many improprieties including prosecutorial misconduct. The state has denied those allegations in its response and says that Arias received a fair trial.
Steven Alexander, Travis’ brother, said he was not too concerned about her latest efforts to get out of prison.
“None of it affects the fact that she murdered my brother and she’s admitted to it,” he said.
Arias was looking for opportunities with a network marketing company called Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. when she met Travis Alexander at a company convention in Las Vegas in September 2006.
The two hit it off, with Alexander even inviting Arias to the company’s formal executive dinner as his guest.
“She’s beautiful. She’s friendly, has long, blonde hair. Cute figure. She was very sweet,” Lovingier Hughes said of Arias. “During the dinner, they just talked the whole time. She seemed to like him as much as he liked her.”
Hughes, another close friend of Alexander’s, said Alexander was smitten. After the dinner, Alexander and Arias talked with each other until 4 a.m.
“The next morning, he tells me that he’s found his wife and this is the girl that he wants to marry,” Lovingier Hughes said.
“It was cute, you know? I mean, I was, like, ‘OK. I mean, like, good for you, Travis.’ It was cute to watch,” Hughes said.
After the convention, once Alexander and Arias began seeing more of each other, they traveled to popular sites in the Southwest. Arias documented online their time together, posting photos to social media. In an email to Hughes, Alexander shared how deeply he cared for Arias.
“I went from intrigued by her to interested in her to caring about her deeply to realizing how lucky I would be to have her as part of my life forever. … She is amazing. It is not hard to see that whoever scores Jodi, whether it be me or someone else, is gonna win the wife lotto,” Alexander said in that email.
There was trouble, however, in the blossoming romance. Alexander was deeply involved in his faith and she was not Mormon. Unbeknownst to friends, the two were having premarital sex, breaking one of of the most important tenets of the Mormon faith.
Colleen McDannell, a professor of religious studies at the University of Utah, told “20/20” that for Mormons, sex and sexual activity outside of the bounds of marriage are forbidden.
“The law of chastity basically says your body is a sacred space. Your body was given to you by God. It’s not just yours, it’s not just your decisions to do with as you will. God has given this to you and you must respect it,” McDannell said. “And, Latter-Day Saints believe that because marriage is so important and so intense and sexuality is so much a part of that, that you need to preserve those sexual expressions for your spouse. So before you marry and after you marry, you have to keep yourself sexually pure.”
Being true to his religion was incredibly important to Alexander, and the guilt he felt about their relationship started to weigh on him, friends said.
“He was always incredibly strong in the church but after meeting Jodi, some of the conversations were about the challenge of morality, because this girl is in his life,” another friend, Dave Hall, said.
Alexander maintained a blog called “Travis Alexander’s Being Better Blog.” In a post, he wrote candidly about his early life.
For example, he wrote about a difficult childhood while growing up in Southern California with his parents, who were addicted to drugs at that time.
“It was a very tough life living with our mother,” Steven Alexander said. “We kinda fended for ourselves. … [Instant noodles] was the main source of nutrition.”
In his blog, Alexander wrote: “When you sleep, for four days with a house full of kids, there isn’t any food cooked. We would eat what was there but before long what was edible would be eaten or rot and then what was rotten would be eaten too.”
Alexander’s grandmother eventually took him and his siblings in, and began clothing and feeding them, Steven Alexander said.
“Our grandmother was a saint. I mean, she was the greatest woman. … She got us all in church, you know, pointing us in the right direction,” he said.
Soon after Alexander met Arias, he sent missionaries to her home. He also talked about the Book of Mormon with her and quoted scripture to her. Within months of their meeting, Arias converted to Mormonism. He baptized her.
It was emotional. It was spiritual. It was powerful … it’s a feeling that … like everything just comes right into alignment and nothing can go wrong,” Arias said in a 2008 interview with ABC News.
Hughes said that Alexander still struggled and suffered with guilt over the fact that he and Arias were having sex.
“They’re both sinning in the eyes of his church. Travis wanted to marry a virginal, pure Mormon girl, and by having sex with him, Jodi eliminated herself as ever being marriage potential for Travis,” said Shanna Hogan, an author and journalist who wrote the book “Picture Perfect: The Jodi Arias Story.”
McDannell told “20/20” that marriage was the foundation of the Mormon faith and that it was very important for members to meet each other and to marry in the temple.
“That enables them then to live in the other life eternally and eventually to spiritually progress,” she said.
Early on, Alexander’s friends began noticing odd behavior from Arias, particularly her infatuation with their friend.
“One night we’re all in the hot tub and there’s four of us. You know, this is a time to chat and hang out. Well, Jodi is, like, climbing on Travis while we’re trying to have this conversation,” Hughes said.
“She was all over him. I mean, like eighth-graders whose parents are out of town, like, straddling his lap and sucking on his neck. And Travis just kept pushing her off and he’s like, ‘Jodi…get off me. Like, what are you doing?’ And I look at Chris [Hughes] and I’m like, ‘Does she not realize we’re sitting here?'” Lovingier Hughes recalled. “This is around the time where she became very possessive of him.”
“That was one of those nights where, like, she’s weird. You know, like this is weird,” Hughes said.
Alexander’s friend Clancy Talbot said Arias was very possessive.
“She just had to sit right by him. She didn’t appreciate when he was talking to another female. She didn’t like the fact that if there was anyone that didn’t know that they were together. She wanted to make that clear,” Talbot said.
As his friends got to know her better, they said they grew increasingly creeped out by Arias’ behavior. Lovingier Hughes said that Arias would follow Alexander to the bathroom and stand outside the door or eavesdrop on his conversations. Hughes said she went through Alexander’s cellphone on multiple occasions as well as his emails and social media accounts. Lovingier Hughes added Arias would go so far as to forward emails between Alexander and other women to herself.
Hughes said that he and Lovingier Hughes talked with Alexander about their concerns. One day, they said they sat him down and told him they thought Arias was dangerous.
But Hughes and Lovingier Hughes said Alexander rebuffed their concerns, telling them he thought Arias was good and sweet and that he really liked her.
“All of a sudden I got this cold feeling over me and I knew she was outside our door. … I mouthed to them and pointed at the door and I said, ‘She’s out there,'” Lovingier Hughes said.
Alexander didn’t believe them but when he opened the door suddenly, he found Arias standing on the other side, Hughes and Lovingier Hughes said. Lovingier Hughes described the look on Arias’ face as “evil.”
“There was a rage in her eyes. … Sky and I are very frightened at this point. She might burn down our house, you know, with all of us in it,” Hughes said.
After five months together, Alexander broke up with Arias. Weeks later, she moved to Mesa, where he was living. His friends were baffled.
His friends said Arias would show up to his house unannounced and let herself in through the garage door because she knew the code, according to Brian Skoloff, who co-wrote a book about the Arias case called “Killer Girlfriend: The Jodi Arias Story.” Skoloff said Alexander told friends she’d even snuck into his house through a doggy door.
“Sometimes Travis would be angry and other times he would jump into bed right with her and they would have sex,” Hogan said.
Meanwhile, Alexander began dating a woman named Lisa, Lovingier Hughes said. Arias, she said, would try scaring Lisa by knocking on her door and windows before running away
Alexander’s friends said his tires were slashed on two occasions while he was dating Lisa, and that he and his friends believed Arias was the one behind it. When Alexander confronted her with his suspicions, she denied it, Hogan said.
By April 2008, after living in Mesa for about eight months, Arias returned to her family in Yreka, California.
“I was excited and Travis was excited,” Lovingier Hughes said. “He said, ‘I’m getting, I’m getting my life back. Like, this is a whole new start. She’s gone.'”
Despite this change, unbeknownst to his friends, Arias and Alexander continued communicating via phone and texts and engaging in phone sex. Steven Alexander said Arias was his brother’s “kryptonite.”
But in May 2008, although the reasons were unclear, Gchat and text messages revealed the two were in the midst of a huge fight, according to Jane Velez-Mitchell, author of “Exposed: The Secret Life of Jodi Arias.”
At one point, Alexander wrote: “You don’t know what horror you have caused me.”
“It wasn’t really my intention to harm you,” she responded.
He later called her a sociopath and “the lowest of the low.”
In early June 2008, Alexander had plans to attend a company retreat in Cancun, Mexico, with a Mormon woman he was pursuing named Mimi.
The Hugheses had already gotten to Cancun and were trying to plan activities for when Alexander and Mimi arrived.
“I’m calling him and I’m texting him, ‘Do you wanna do this? Do you wanna do this?’ He wasn’t responding,” Hughes said.
When Alexander missed a conference call that he was supposed to be leading, the Hugheses grew worried and left him a voicemail.
“I said, ‘T-dogg, you better be dead, bro.’ Yeah, like I was joking. ‘Call me back.’ You know, ‘Why are you dissin’ me? Why aren’t you calling me back?’ I said to Sky…’something’s wrong,'” Hughes said.
By June 9, 2008, it had been five days since his friends had heard from him. Mimi, who hadn’t left for the trip yet, and two others headed to Travis Alexander’s home. A friend gave them the garage code to get them into the house, where they found one of his roommates named Zach Billings.
“They ask him, ‘Hey, have you seen or heard from Travis?’ He said, ‘No. He’s in Mexico.’ And Mimi said, ‘He’s not in Mexico. I’m supposed to go with him to Mexico tomorrow,'” Lovingier Hughes said.
Billings opened the door to Alexander’s room and entered, finding a puddle of blood on the carpet. He continued down the hallway to the bathroom, where he discovered Alexander’s body crumpled up in the shower. The friends then called 911.
When Mesa Police detective Esteban Flores arrived on the scene, he told “20/20” that blood was everywhere.
“The first thing I thought was there was a major struggle in here. … That it was deeply personal,” Flores said. “Somebody knew him. Somebody wanted him dead. … Somebody wanted to make sure that he was dead.”
Authorities later determined that Alexander had been dead for days. He had been stabbed at least 27 times, his throat had been cut ear to ear and he had also been shot in the head.
Police found a bloody palm print outside of Alexander’s bedroom, long brown hairs on the floor and walls of the bathroom that only he used and a camera in the home’s washing machine.
When the Hugheses got the news, Chris Hughes said, “I remember just saying — almost howling — ‘no, no, no, no, no’ and ‘Oh my gosh. How did this happen?'”
“It was just shock. I couldn’t feel anything. I was sitting in the room, by myself, and it hit me that Travis was gone,” Lovingier Hughes said.
Within hours of Alexander’s body being found, Arias called the police to ask about the case.
Flores said Arias told him that she’d spoken briefly to Alexander the day he was killed as she was driving to Utah to see a new guy she was dating. During their conversations, Flores told Arias that her name had come up repeatedly during the investigation.
“She was a stalker. She was an ex-girlfriend and she wouldn’t leave Travis alone,” he said Alexander’s friends had told him.
Arias denied being in Arizona at the time of Alexander’s slaying, he said.
When she went to Arizona for Alexander’s memorial service, she agreed to be fingerprinted by the police.
Computer forensic investigators then made a shocking discovery. They had analyzed the memory card of the camera they found in Alexander’s washing machine and found photographs of him and Arias timestamped from the day of the murder, Flores said.
Authorities later learned that the blood from the palm print belonged to both Alexander and Arias. Flores and police traveled to Yreka, California, to arrest her.
During her police interrogations, Arias tried to explain why she had arrived a day late to Utah to see her new love interest. She had been expected on June 4, but arrived a full day later. She told police that her phone had died and she’d gotten lost on the road.
Ryan Burns, the man she was visiting in Utah, told police he’d tried to reach her three or four times and that each time the call had gone to voicemail.
Flores learned that a .25-caliber gun had gone missing from the home of Arias’ grandparents about a week before the killing. The caliber of the grandparents’ gun matched the caliber of the bullet casing that had been found on Alexander’s bathroom floor.
As he questioned her, Flores showed Arias graphic photographs of her and Alexander just hours before he’d been killed. Arias continued to deny any involvement in the killing.
“No matter how much evidence I would tell her about, she was not going to admit that she was even there,” he said.
The next day, after a night in jail, Arias admitted to investigators that she had been at Alexander’s home the day he was killed.
Arias claimed that she’d arrived at 3 a.m. and that they’d slept and had sex. She claimed that later on, while she was taking photographs of him in the shower, they were attacked by two masked intruders — a man and a woman — who were bent on killing Alexander. She said that one of the masked intruders had told her to leave and threatened to kill her family if she ever mentioned the incident to anyone.
Authorities didn’t believe her story. She was charged with first-degree murder in Alexander’s death.
Arias remained in prison for more than four years while awaiting trial. In January 2013, her death-penalty trial started.
On the witness stand, Arias told the court an entirely different story than the two previous ones she’d told investigators. She testified to killing Alexander but claimed that it was done in self-defense after he became angry when she dropped the camera that authorities later found in the washing machine. She claimed Alexander had abused her on several previous occasions.
She also claimed that she’d found him masturbating to a photograph of a child.
“There was absolutely no proof that Travis had ever been physically abusive with her or anyone in his life in the past. … None of these claims were ever proven. Police never found child pornography anywhere in Travis’ house,” Skoloff said.
“Her mission was basically to murder my brother again for a second time by destroying his reputation,” Steven Alexander said. “The self-defense story was just…a joke. My brother didn’t even own a gun.”
In May 2013, the jury found Arias guilty of first-degree murder in Alexander’s death.
“Everybody in my family was bawling. They were happy. … We were all hugging and just was preparing for the next phase. The sentencing phase,” Steven Alexander said.
A judge sentenced Arias to life in prison without the possibility of parole after two juries could not agree on whether to sentence her to death.
Arias told ABC News in a 2013 interview that she was “shell-shocked” by her conviction.
“I was really hoping the jury would see things for what they are. … I didn’t expect to walk away. I knew that was a possibility, a slim chance…in a parallel universe somewhere, but certainly not first-degree,” she said
Arias remains in Perryville Prison in Arizona, awaiting a decision on her appeal.
As time has passed, Steven Alexander says he’s tried not to think of Arias.
“I’ve kind of let that part go … [Travis] should have a couple of kids,” he said. “He should have a beautiful wife. He should have a beautiful home. He should have absolute happiness. And he should have that beautiful smile that was on his face all the time.”
Jessica Burlew was a sixteen year old from Arizona when she murdered a man she was having sex with. According to court documents Jessica Burlew would wrap an electrical cord around the forty three year old victims neck and strangle him. Jessica Burlew told police it was an accident however she would ultimately be charged with murder. This teen killer would plead guilty to second degree murder and be sentenced to ten years in prison.
Jessica Burlew 2023 Information
Last Name First Name Middle Initial BURLEW JESSICA D Gender Height (inches)Weight Hair Color FEMALE 64 168 BROWN Eye Color Ethnic Origin Custody Class Admission BROWN CAUCASIAN Close/High 10/23/2015 Projected Eligible Release Date Prison Release Date Release Type 11/21/2024 ERCD Most Recent Location As of Date Complex Unit Last Movement Status PERRYVILLEAS PC-PV LUMLEY UNIT 10/08/2020 ACTIVE
Jessica Burlew had accepted the state’s plea bargain last month — pleading guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a 10-year sentence — and today, Judge Scott McCoy reviewed the mitigating factors put forward by the defense and agreed to the terms of the deal.
“I know there’s been a great deal of debate about this case, but today is not the day for debate,” McCoy said before reading his sentencing decision. “Despite the very unusual circumstances of this case . . . there are a considerable amount of mitigating [factors], so much so that it justifies reducing the sentence down to 10 years.” (A second-degree murder charge can bring up to 25 years in prison.)
McCoy gave Jessica Burlew credit for the 644 days she’s already served in a Maricopa County jail and reminded her that she has 90 days to file a petition for post-conviction relief should she believe there was an error in the way her case was handled. Overall, it was an emotion-filled final day in court for what has been a complicated and often controversial situation:
In January 2014, Jessica Burlew — who was 16 at the time — told police that she accidentally strangled Ash, the older man she met online and had been involved with sexually, after he asked her to choke him. She said she didn’t stop because he never said the “safe word.”
As New Times detailed in the May cover story, The Deepest Cut, when Jessica Burlew realized that Ash was non-responsive, she cut his body with a razor blade in what she says was an attempt to revive him. According to the police report, she later clarified that the first cut “was an attempt to get a reaction to see if he was still alive or if he would wake up,” and that the subsequent ones were to “get things clear in her mind.”
Jessica Burlew then called her mother, Tracey Woodside, who was nearby cleaning her vehicle. Woodside rushed back to the apartment, saw Ash’s body, and immediately dialed 911. By the time police arrived, Burlew had fled the scene. She came back hours later and was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.
In the time since Burlew’s arrest — most of which has been spent in solitary confinement — her case has inspired a great deal of controversy. She has a strong and vocal group of supporters in the group Free Jessie B., who are furious about the way her case has been handled.
Burlew’s advocates also maintain that she, not Ash, is the true victim in the situation. They point to the age difference, the fact that she was not of legal age to consent to sex, and that Ash helped her access drugs — mostly heroin and meth— as proof that Ash was a sexual predator. And they point to her mental-health issues, self-mutilation, and the myriad ways the state’s social safety nets failed Burlew as proof that Ash would still be alive if she had been cared for properly.
In speaking to the judge this morning, Marcia Ash, Jason’s mother, acknowledged that both her son and Burlew are “victims” in this situation — Jason because he “died in such a horrible way” and Burlew because “she fell through the cracks [of society]” — but stated boldly that while her son “wasn’t perfect and didn’t always make the best choices . . . he was not a pedophile or a sexual predator.”
Marcia Ash went on to say that while strangling someone could be construed as an accident, the type of “unimaginatively horrific post-mortem mutilation” Burlew inflicted on her son’s body could not — and she placed much of the blame on Burlew’s mother, Tracey Woodside, who also was in the courtroom. Woodside, who declined to comment for this article, watched the sentencing from the back of the room, rarely taking her eyes off of her daughter. She decided not to make a speech in front of the judge but could be seen wringing her hands, the same way her daughter sometimes does, as both Marcia Ash and prosecutor Jay Rademacher spoke.
“The state acknowledges the substantial mitigating factors: her upbringing, her mental-health problems, the drugs . . . However, there other other factors to consider,” Rademacher said. “The defendant was engaged in adult activities, and she needs to face adult consequences.”
He also disputed the notion that Jason Ash was any sort of sexual predator: “If you look at the texts [between Ash and Burlew], they don’t paint a picture of a child molester . . . Jason seemed like a little puppy dog that would do anything for Jessica.”
At this comment, Woodside and her friend sitting next to her exchanged frustrated glances. . “I understand the age of consent, but this defendant lied about her age [and] she initiated a lot of the drugs, mutilation, and sex [in the videos retrieved from her cell phone],” Rademacher added. He ended his remarks by calling the situation a “recipe for disaster” and saying, “This wasn’t an accident, because at the end of the day, Jessica was holding the cord around his neck, and she killed him.”
Ashely Meyer, Burlew’s public defender, spoke next. She called the plea bargain the “final and best plea offer” and listed seven mitigating factors she wanted the judge to consider before sentencing Burlew:
1. That Burlew was only 16. 2. That she has no prior felonies on her record. 3.That she didn’t have the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions because of the drugs he gave her. 4. That she has an extensive history of substance abuse. 5. That she has significant mental-health issues and had a dysfunctional childhood. 6. That the slaying was not premeditated and was, in fact, the result of a consensual act. 7. That the relationship between Burlew and Ash was completely inappropriate.
“He was 43, she was 16,” Meyer said. “Both are victims of different crimes.”
Before announcing his sentencing decision, McCoy gave Burlew a chance to speak:
“He also lied about his age,” she replied. “He said he was 26 on the internet site where we met, then he said he was 28. He kept saying he was 28, and I believed it.” While at her last court hearing, Jessica Burlew looked disorientated and upset, today she appeared calmer. As the court bailiff led her out of the courtroom, she looked back over her left shoulder and gave her mother a little smile.
Woodside, who had tears in her eyes at this point, continued to stare at the tall wooden door of the courtroom long after her daughter was out of sight.
A Glendale teen accused of strangling a man to death during sex was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday.
Jessica Burlew, now 18, was charged as an adult with second-degree murder.
The charge stems from the death of her boyfriend, Jason Ash, 43. His body was found in a Glendale apartment in January 2014.
Jessica Burlew pleaded guilty to the charge last month. She was 16 at the time of the incident, but prosecutors charged her as an adult.
Jessica Burlew reportedly told her mother that she and Ash were playing sex games and he was cut and choked. She said Ash did not say the “safety word,” the documents stated. Burlew told police that they would often engage in such acts prior to consensual sex.
Jessica Burlew told police that after she strangled Ash, she began cutting him with a razor blade in an attempt to get a response since he appeared to have passed out, according to the court documents. After she didn’t get a response, she said she continued to cut him in order to alleviate her stress from the situation.
Burlew’s mother said the teen has a history of cutting herself “as a release,” according to the court paperwork.
Supporters of Burlew say she was a minor sexually victimized by Ash and the death should have been considered accidental. Sex with a minor is a felony under Arizona law.
A Glendale teenager accused of killing her older lover during rough sex was sentenced to 10 years in prison Oct. 20.
Jessica Burlew, 18, pleaded guilty to killing Jason Ash Jan. 18, 2014, after he was found dead in Burlew’s bed with an electrical cord wrapped around his neck. He also had cuts on his arms and face, believed to be caused by a razor. She had accepted the state’s plea deal last month.
“I know there’s been a great deal of debate about this case, but today is not the day for debate,” Judge Scott McCoy said before reading the sentencing verdict Oct. 20. “Despite the very unusual circumstances of this case, there are considerable amount of mitigating factors, so much so that it justifies reducing the sentence down to 10 years.”
Burlew could have received up to 25 years in prison for the second-degree murder charge.
Police were called to the home in January 2014 after a 911 call where Ash was found, but Burlew, who was 16 at the time, was not present when officers arrived.
Burlew’s mother, Tracey Woodside, said Burlew had called her after leaving the scene and told her that Ash was dead in her bed.
She was found in a nearby apartment, where she admitted to the killing and that it was an accident.
Burlew told police that the two had normally participated in choking during sexual intercourse and that Ash had not motioned to stop the choking during the fatal encounter.
She was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with 644 days credit for the time she has already served in jail.
JESSICA BURLEW, IS AN 18 YEAR OLD GIRL DIAGNOSED AS SCHIZOEFFECTIVE AND AUTISTIC, WAS HELD PRE-TRIAL IN ISOLATION IN ESTRELLA JAIL FROM JANUARY, 2014 UNTIL NOVEMBER, 2015. SHE IS CURRENTLY HOUSED AT PERRYVILLE PRISON AFTER HAVING BEEN CONVICTED OF 2ND DEGREE MURDER FOR THE ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF JASON ASH, A 43 YEAR OLD MAN WHO WAS SEXUALLY EXPLOITING HER AS A 16 YEAR OLD.
Meaghan Rice would conspire with one of her boyfriends, David Paulson, to murder another boyfriend Randall Mercier. According to court documents in Arizona, Maeghan Rice would pick up Randall Mercier with David Paulson hiding under a blanket in the back seat of the truck. When the victim was inside of the vehicle he would be brutally stabbed by Paulson. Meaghan Rice who was sixteen years old at the time of the murder would take four years to go to trial where the teen killer would be sentenced to twelve and a half years in prison. David Paulson would receive a life sentence.
Meaghan Rice 2023 Information
Last Name First Name Middle Initial RICE MAEGHAN
Gender Height (inches) Weight Hair Color FEMALE 64 118 BROWN
Eye Color Ethnic Origin Custody Class Admission BLUE CAUCASIAN Medium/High 08/19/2011
Projected Eligible Release Date Prison Release Date Release Type 12/21/2020 Sentence Expiration Date
Most Recent LocationAs of DateComplexUnit Last Movement Status PERRYVILLEAS PC-PV LUMLEY MDM 02/28/2018 ACTIVE
Meaghan Rice Other News
A 20-year-old Apache Junction woman was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison on a charge of second-degree murder in connection with a case where she conspired with one of her boyfriends to kill another out of jealously while driving him in a pickup truck in 2008.
Meaghan Rice was sentenced for the crime in Pinal County Superior Court before Judge Boyd Johnson on Monday, three years after 17-year-old Randall Mercier bled to death in a ditch along Tomahawk Road north of Superstition Boulevard after he was attacked by David Paulson, also 17.
On June 20, 2008, Rice, then 16, picked up Mercier while Paulson hid under a blanket in the back cruiser cab of the truck. Rice said a code word for Paulson who killed Mercier out of jealousy, according to Capt. Tom Kelly, a spokesman for the Apache Junction Police Department. Paulson stabbed Mercier at least 20 times before the boy was able to escape from the truck and collapse in the ditch where he died.
Paulson was found guilty of first-degree murder on Friday by a jury in Pinal County Superior Court before Judge Gilberto Figueroa for killing Mercier.
After the crime, Paulson fled to Salt Lake City, where he later was captured by the U.S. Marshal’s Service Fugitive Task Force.
More than 500 people attended a candlelight vigil for Mercier and more than 400 people attended his funeral.
Kelly said Meaghan Rice played one boyfriend off the other who both were jealous of each other, but Mercier was the one who wound up getting killed.
A sentencing date for Paulson has not been scheduled.
Paulson and Rice, who both were tried as adults, have been incarcerated in a Pinal County jail since the crime.
Meaghan Rice More News
A man who stabbed an Apache Junction teenager to death in 2008 when he was himself a teenager was sentenced to life in prison on Monday.
Both David Paulson, 21, and Randall Davis-Mercier were 17 when Maeghan Rice, 16, picked up Mercier the evening of June 20, 2008, in a pickup truck. According to police, Rice then said a code word that triggered Paulson to come out from his hiding place under a blanket and stab Mercier as many as 20 times, reportedly out of jealousy. Mercier was able to escape the truck, but collapsed and bled to death on the side of the road.
Paulson was found guilty by a Pinal County jury following a two-week trial last month. Rice, a Gold Canyon resident, was then Paulson’s 16-year-old girlfriend.
After the killing, Paulson fled to Salt Lake City, where he later was captured by the U.S. Marshal’s Service Fugitive Task Force.
“David Paulson committed a particularly heinous crime,” said Pinal County Attorney James Walsh. “This was a long and hard trial for the victim’s family, and I want to offer my condolences.”
More than 500 people attended a candlelight vigil for Mercier, and more than 400 went to his funeral.
Rice, now 20, has been held in the Pinal County Adult Detention Center since her arrest. She was sentenced to 12.5 years in prison for second-degree murder in connection with the killing.
Paulson, who has been kept in the Pinal County Adult Detention Center since the crime, will be eligible for parole after he serves 25 years in prison, according to the Pinal County Attorney’s Office.
Eye Color Ethnic Origin Custody Class Admission BROWN CAUCASIAN Medium/Low 09/21/2011
Projected Eligible Release Date Prison Release Date Release Type Life LIFE
Most Recent LocationAs of DateComplexUnitLast MovementStatusYUMAASPC-Y CHEYENNE UNIT05/08/2019ACTIVE
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