Eric Hainstock was fifteen when he brought a gun to a Wisconsin school and shot his principal. According to court documents Eric Hainstock brought a shotgun and a revolver to the school and would shoot the principal three times causing his death. This teen killer would try to tell the jury the gun went off by accident however they were not buying it and he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison
A state appeals court Thursday upheld the murder conviction of Weston High School shooter Eric Hainstock, ruling that he likely would have been convicted even if certain evidence had been withheld from the jury.
Hainstock’s attorney, Gregory Petit of Menasha, said Thursday he plans to file a petition to have the case reviewed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
“We will do so promptly,” Petit said Thursday.
Hainstock was 15 years old in 2006 when he shot Weston Principal John Klang during a struggle inside the school. A jury convicted Hainstock of first-degree intentional homicide in 2007.
Prior to the trial, Hainstock’s legal team asked that Sauk County Judge Patrick Taggart not allow the jury to hear statements Hainstock made to police in which he admitted to firing all three shots into Klang on purpose, and said he had been thinking about doing it for months.
But Taggart allowed the evidence, finding that there was no improper police conduct or coercion during the interrogation.
Hainstock appealed his conviction, arguing Taggart had applied the wrong legal standard in allowing the statements as evidence at trial.
The appeals court ruled Thursday that Taggart erred in his interpretation of what constitutes a voluntary confession. Prior court rulings have established that even by-the-book interrogations, or the manner in which a suspect is incarcerated, may be coercive if the suspect is “unusually susceptible to pressure.”
However, the appeals court found the judge’s error was harmless because even if Hainstock’s statement to police had been suppressed, a reasonable jury still would have found him guilty for the following reasons:
• Two classmates testified Hainstock had said Klang wouldn’t live through Homecoming.
• Hainstock testified he brought two loaded guns to school with additional ammunition.
• Hainstock said he was there to “kill someone” when he entered the school, a maintenance worker testified.
• A teacher witnessed Hainstock pointing a gun at Klang’s head as the principal tried to calm him.
• Three wounds from three shots contributed to Klang’s death.
• Hainstock testified the handgun he used needed to be cocked.
• Hainstock testified that at least one of his shots was on purpose.
That evidence was inconsistent with the defense’s theory that Hainstock wanted only to scare someone into listening to his complaints and that the gun went off accidentally, the appellate court ruled.
Hainstock’s attorney also argued that his previous attorney did not represent him properly because the attorney did not try to get the Sauk County trial moved elsewhere. The prior attorney also should have moved to strike or make further inquiries of a juror who apparently had a business relationship with Klang’s brother, the appeal argued.
But the court ruled Thursday that those issues “involved too many unresolved factual elements for this court to review for the first time on appeal.”
Tyler Hadley was seventeen when he murdered his parents. According to court documents Tyler hid his parents cell phones so they could not call for help. He would beat his mother to death with a hammer. When his father came to investigate Tyler would murder him in the same fashion. He would hide the bodies then threw a party in the home. Eventually one of the party goers realized what was going on and phoned the police. This teen killer would be convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Tyler Hadley 2023 Information
ID Photo
DC Number:
K86680
Name:
HADLEY, TYLER J
Race:
WHITE
Sex:
MALE
Birth Date:
12/16/1993
Initial Receipt Date:
03/21/2014
Current Facility:
OKEECHOBEE C.I.
Current Custody:
CLOSE
Current Release Date:
SENTENCED TO LIFE
Tyler Hadley Other News
Mike Hadley struggled with strong feelings Thursday as a judge ordered his nephew, Tyler to prison for life for the grisly beating deaths of his parents in 2011.
Mike Hadley’s wife, Cindy, and his sister, Linda Ankrom, quietly sobbed as St. Lucie County Circuit Judge Gary Sweet resentenced the killer to two terms of life in prison during a brief hearing.
“We hope we never have to do this again,” said Mike Hadley, whose brother, Blake Hadley, 54, and sister-in-law, MaryJo, 47, were killed by their son with a claw hammer on July 16, inside their Port St. Lucie home.
“We’re happy with the judge’s decision. It was the right decision to make, and as far as we’re concerned, the only decision,” Mike Hadley, of Deland, said after court. “We’re very pleased that it’s done; we feel like we’ve gone to another funeral today.”
Mike Hadley’s father, Maurice Hadley, of Stuart, was also in court.
The dead couple was found in a master bedroom, the bloodied claw hammer placed between their bodies
After the frenzied attack, he threw a party for dozens of people he invited via Facebook — all while his bludgeoned parents’ bodies remained hidden behind a locked door.
A friend later reported Hadley to authorities and he was arrested the next morning.
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When Tyler Hadley enters the courtroom Monday, he’ll face a new judge looking like a seasoned state prisoner — not the young man who in 2014 was ordered to spend the rest of his life behind bars for brutally killing his parents at age 17.
On that unforgettable day, Hadley, now 24, was a depressed and anxious teen who had obsessed for weeks about killing his parents, mother Mary Jo, 47, and father Blake Hadley, 54. On July 16, 2011, he did it.
He purposely selected a 17-inch framing hammer and silently stood behind his mother before delivering 36 blows, mostly to her head and back. He attacked his father head on, striking him at least 39 times in the head and chest, according to autopsy reports.
His case may be most widely remembered because of what he did next: Hadley used Facebook to summon about 30 pals to party at his Port St. Lucie home on Northeast Granduer Avenue — with his slain parents’ bodies hidden in a bedroom, buried under stuff he haphazardly stacked around them.
He’d wrapped towels around their heads, and reports show a 22-ounce hammer was later found on the floor in between the bodies.
At least two of his friends who attended the raucous party contacted 911 and reported the murders before dawn the next day.
The Hadley house never was lived in again; in 2015, it was torn down and hauled away.
In 2014, Hadley abandoned plans to seek an insanity defense and agreed to plead no contest to two counts of first-degree murder with a weapon.
His case was the first sentencing of a juvenile killer on the Treasure Coast since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 2012 ruling in Miller v. Alabama, which barred automatic mandatory life prison terms for minors.
Hadley had spent two years in state prison when he won an appeal that overturned his life terms and sent his case back for a new sentencing hearing. That hearing begins Oct. 1 and could last into the following week.
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Tyler Hadley is currently incarcerated at the Okeechobee Institute in Florida
Meagan Grunwald was seventeen years old when she took part in a crime spree that would leave one police officer dead and another injured. According to court documents Meagan Grunwald was driving a car with her boyfriend Angel Garcia-Juaregui. Her boyfriend would start shooting at a police car who was trying to pull them over. One of the police officers would be struck in the head and the other officer was fatally injured. Angel Garcia-Juaregui would later die in a shootout with police.
This teen killer tried to say she did not realize that the officers were shot however this was proven to be false in court. Meagan Grunwald would be sentenced to thirty years to life in prison
Meagan Grunwald 2023 Information
Offender Number: 223233
Offender Name: MEAGAN DAKOTA GRUNWALD
DOB: Mon, 5 Aug 1996
Height: 5 Feet 6 Inches
Weight: 160
Sex: F
Location: UTAH STATE PRISON
Housing Facility: TIMPANOGOS
Parole Date: N/A
Aliases:
MEAGAN DAKOTA GRUNWALD
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A young woman convicted in a 50-mile crime spree that left one Utah sheriff’s deputy dead and another wounded was sentenced Wednesday to 30 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
State Judge Darold McDade handed down 18-year-old Meagan Grunwald’s term following emotional testimony about the January 2014 chase from the injured lawman.
Utah County Sheriff’s Deputy Greg Sherwood told the judge that after he was shot in the head and fighting for his life in his police cruiser, Grunwald drove past him without stopping to help.
“She could have ran towards me, and I would have protected her with all my energy,” he said. “Instead, she made the choice to run.”
Grunwald cried during the hearing as she read quickly from a brief written statement.
“It’s hard for me to ask for forgiveness when I have a hard time forgiving myself,” she said.
Meagan Grunwald will get credit for the year and half she already has served behind bars in jail. At the earliest, she could be released in 2044, when she’s 47 years old.
Prosecutors said Meagan Grunwald was a willing accomplice ready to do anything to stay with her 27-year-old boyfriend, including driving a speeding getaway car in the three-county chase.
During her trial, the teenager tearfully told a jury she was afraid to stop driving when the man she loved turned the gun on her and threatened to kill her family.
The boyfriend, Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui, was killed in a shootout with police.
Meagan Grunwald was convicted in May of 11 counts, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, aggravated robbery and use of a controlled substance. She was found not guilty on one count of attempted aggravated murder.
The maximum penalty Meagan Grunwald could have faced was life in prison without parole. She was ineligible for the death penalty because she was 17 when it happened.
She was charged and convicted under Utah laws that allow an accomplice to be considered equally responsible for a crime.
Utah County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cory Wride, 44, was killed during the crime spree.
Wride’s widow, Nannette, said his family wanted Grunwald to have a chance at parole because she’s young and might make something of herself.
“I’m going to be rooting for her to be someone better,” Nannette Wride told reporters.
Before Grunwald was sentenced, Wride addressed the crying teenager in court.
“You are forgiven, and I hope, sweet girl, that one day you can forgive yourself,” Wride said as Meagan Grunwald put her head down and sobbed.
The shootout and chase came after Cory Wride happened upon the couple’s pickup on the side of a road. Garcia-Jauregui had a warrant out for his arrest and gave the deputy a fake name. When Wride grew suspicious, Garcia-Jauregui stuck a gun out the truck’s rear window and shot the deputy as he sat in his police cruiser.
Grunwald’s lawyer said she was a scared girl who trusted an older, manipulative man. Attorney Dean Zabriskie said as the couple fled from police through three central Utah counties, Grunwald was driving with a gun to her head.
Zabriskie said Wednesday that Meagan Grunwald survived her time in the truck because Wride stopped to help her, and she considers him her savior.
“Now she wishes she would have done something,” he said. “She wishes she would have done something, even at the risk of her life.”
Zabriskie said Grunwald plans to appeal her conviction.
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Meagan Grunwald is currently incarcerated at the Utah State Prison
Meagan Grunwald Release Date
Meagan Grunwald is currently going through a resentencing process in which she must serve 30 years before she is eligible for release which would be 2044.
Meagan Grunwald Appeal
The Utah Supreme Court has overturned the murder conviction of Meagan Grunwald.
Grunwald was the getaway driver for her boyfriend, who shot and killed Utah County Sheriff Sgt. Cory Wride in 2014. Grunwald was originally found equally liable for Wride’s death.
Utah’s High Court ruled that there was a reasonable probability a jury would not have convicted the now 23-year-old if it weren’t for errors in jury instructions during her trial.
Wride’s widow, Nannette Wride, was extremely emotional when she heard the news of the reversal on Friday.
“I stand in utter shock and numbness, because I don’t understand,” she said. “I am ashamed of the state we live in. Cory pulled up behind someone with their hazards on that snowy day. He was there to help them, and he was shot to death. To have the conviction overturned is like losing six years of healing. It’s incredibly painful.”
Meagan Grunwald remained in prison, where she has been since July 2015, on a remaining conviction of aggravated robbery tied to the car chase, which also wounded Utah County Sheriff’s deputy Greg Sherwood.
The first-degree felony charge carries a sentence of at least five years and up to life.
Brent Jex, president of the Utah Fraternal Order of Police, spoke for the nearly 4,000 members of the police union, advocating for a retrial and final justice for Sgt. Wride.
“The facts are there. The elements are there. The need for justice is there,” Jex said. “The decision to retry could be made today, even within the hour by Utah County Attorney David Leavitt.”
Members of the order were waiting to see what action the Utah County prosecutor will take, if any.
“This affects our community, the ways we function, and the safety we feel here,” said Shante Johnson, communications director for the Utah Fraternal Order of Police. “Meagan Grunwald 100% was not a victim. She participated wholly in what happened that tragic day.”
Grunwald’s attorneys took the argument to the Utah Court of Appeals in 2018, where they failed to overturn the conviction. However, the Utah Supreme Court ruled in favor of the faulty jury instruction, reversing the capital murder conviction.
“For that technicality to be a single word is rare,” Jex said. “Whether the law enforcement community can feel confidence that the Utah County prosecutor will do the right thing… we are about to find out, and the effect will be significant.”
The Utah Fraternal Order of Police released a statement on the overturned conviction on Friday:
“Our hearts are heavy with the news that the Wride family, their friends, the community, and every man and woman serving in law enforcement will be forced to re-live the trauma that Meagan Grunwald inflicted upon them with her callous and murderous actions.
“Today, the Utah Supreme Court ordered a retrial based on technicality – that the original judge issued slightly faulty instructions to the jury. We are all called upon to make difficult judgements, and will not turn our anger upon the justices. However, let there be no doubt – on that day, Ms. Grunwald actively participated in the murder of Sergeant Cory Wride, and she should pay for her actions by spending the rest of her life in prison.
“We are confident that the horror of that day will once again be taken up by the brave, extraordinarily dedicated prosecutors of the Utah County Attorney’s Office under the leadership of Utah County Attorney David Leavitt. On behalf of our nearly 4,000 members, we stand by to support those efforts and see final justice for Sergeant Wride – with the life imprisonment of his murderer. Let the people of Utah County be called once again to hear the horrific details of Ms. Grunwald’s actions, and let them once again order her removed from society for the rest of her days. There are no jury instructions that will save her.
“We leave you with Ms. Grunwald’s words to officers at the end of the chase she led them on that day, which included shooting a second officer in the face. As she discovered her lover laying in the road, she did not ask police for help, nor was she distressed that officers had been shot and killed. Instead, she saved her concern for her boyfriend: ‘You f—— a——-, you didn’t have to shoot him. You f—— shot him. Oh my god, you f—— shot him.’”
After more than 11 hours of deliberation, the jury found Meagan Grunwald guilty of 11 of the 12 charges against her, including aggravated murder.
As the jurors sat to listen to the clerk read the verdicts, many looked noticeably upset, not just fatigued.
Grunwald, 18, was convicted of being an accomplice to murder in the shooting death of Sgt. Cory Wride of the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. Jose Angel Garcia-Juaregui, her ex-boyfriend, was shot and killed Jan. 30, 2014 in Juab County after an hours-long crime spree that left Wride dead, Deputy Greg Sherwood seriously injured and countless others traumatized.
“No one wins in these kinds of situations,” said Blake Wride, father of Cory Wride. “Do we feel happy? No. Did it bring Cory back? No. But like I said earlier today, when people make choices, there’s consequences.”
Sherwood was in court every day of the trial, and after hearing the verdict, he said, “It shows that if you make bad choices and you hang out with the wrong people, there are going to be consequences for it.
“It’s a sad situation, it’s not the great end for anybody, but my family and I and the Wrides are grateful to have this in the past and move on.”
After the verdict was read, Grunwald’s family broke down into hysterics and tears. Her mother shouted, “I love you, baby” as the teen was led out of the courtroom. As the verdict was read on her dozen charges, she cursed the judge, jury and even the Wride family, and her family had to help her out of the courtroom.
Beyond the charge of aggravated murder for the death of Wride, Grunwald was found guilty of aggravated attempted murder and the discharge of a firearm in the shooting of Sherwood.
She was found not guilty of attempted aggravated murder of trooper Jeff Blankenagel.
She also was found guilty on two charges of discharging a firearm, two charges of criminal mischief, a charge of accident involving property damage, failure to stop, aggravated robbery and a charge of possession of methamphetamine.
Deliberations began Friday afternoon after prosecutors said Meagan Grunwald’s tearful testimony — that her boyfriend pointed a gun at her and threatened her family, forcing her to drive the car during the fatal crime spree — rang hollow.
The jury returned a verdict at about 12:30 a.m. Saturday. An appeal of the verdict is likely, according to Grunwald’s attorney, Dean Zabriskie.
“We’re very, very disappointed and of course, she’s devastated,” he said. Grunwald tried to maintain composure as the guilty verdicts were read, but by the time Judge Darold McDade was discussing a sentencing date with her attorneys, she was in tears.
“Do we agree with it? Of course not.” Zabriskie said. “Do we accept it? Yes, we do.”
Nanette Wride, Cory Wride’s widow, was not in the courtroom to hear the verdict. She is in Washington D.C. already for a special ceremony in which her late husband’s name will be added to the Fallen Officers Memorial.
Sentencing will be on July 8. Grunwald faces a life prison term.
John Granat was seventeen when he orchestrated the murders of his parents in Illinois. According to court documents John Granat was upset with his parents because they found out he was growing marijuana in his bedroom and he figured the best way to solve the problem was to murder his parents. John Granat recruited three of his friends by promising him a cut of the insurance money.
On the day of the attack John Granat gave the key word and his parents were beaten to death. When he was arrested John Granat attempted to blame the murders on a drug dealer who murdered his parents however that quickly fell through. This teen killer would be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
John Granat 2023 Information
Parent Institution:
MENARD CORRECTIONAL CENTER
Offender Status:
IN CUSTODY
Location:
MENARD
John Granat Other News
A Palos Township man was sentenced Thursday to natural life in prison for the brutal slayings of his parents.
John Granat Jr., 22, was accused of being the mastermind in the 2011 deaths of John Granat Sr. and his wife, Maria Granat. The couple’s skulls were crushed with aluminum bats, and then the dying mother was repeatedly stabbed to death.
Prosecutors alleged Granat Jr., then 17 years old, groomed three friends, showered them with cash gifts and promised more money after his parents were dead. He had become enraged with his parents after they discovered he was growing marijuana plants in his room and grounded him, prosecutors alleged. Granat Jr. remained in the family garage and quietly counted stacks of cash the family kept in the house, money he would use to pay off his friends, prosecutors alleged.
On Thursday, Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Deborah Lawler read a statement in Judge Neil Linehan’s Bridgeview courtroom from the dead woman’s sister, Kathy Sieczka, according to court records.
“The worst part of it, (Granat Jr.) never showed any remorse or regret,” Lawler said while reading the statement. “How could you be so evil?”
The violent killings on the morning of Sept. 11, 2011, rocked the Palos Township-area community where the family lived.
Granat Jr., according to prosecutors, signaled the start of the killings by using a code word: “concert.”
Granat Jr.’s parents were brutally beaten to death in their bed.
Granat and three of his friends — Christopher Wyma, of Bridgeview; Ehab Qasem, of Hickory Hills; and Mohammed Salahat, 22, of Palos Heights — were charged in the killings.
Salahat, who drove the three others to and from the murder scene, pleaded guilty to murder last year and is serving a 35-year prison sentence. Qasem, who pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree murder in the death of Granat Sr., was sentenced earlier this month to 40 years in prison, and Wyma, who has been found guilty, is scheduled to appear in court Friday morning.
Prosecutors said Wyma and Qasem crept into the Granats’ bedroom and beat in their heads and bodies with metal baseball bats. Qasem testified that he then stabbed Maria Granat with a knife that Granat Jr. gave him.
Granat Jr. paid for clothing and shoes for the four of them with $100 bills, while giving them the change “because he does not like change,” according to Qasem’s testimony.
A jury deliberated less than two hours before delivering a guilty verdict for a former Palos Park man accused of grooming three friends to murder his parents.
John Granat, 22, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder of his parents, John and Maria Granat. Granat was emotionless as the verdict was announced.
Maria’s sister, Kathy, sobbed quietly in the courtroom. After her nephew was led away, she hugged Cook County assistant state’s attorneys Donna Norton and Deborah Lawler. Less than 20 minutes later, the family went back to courtroom when a verdict was reached for Granat’s accomplice, former best friend Christopher Wyma.
The week-long trial was marked by dramatic testimony by star witness and co-defendant Ehab Qasem. In exchange for his testimony, Qasem agreed to plead guilty to one count of murder and a 40-year sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections
John Granat was 17 years old and a senior at Stagg High School when he called 911 to report that he slept through a home invasion and found his parents bludgeoned to death and “drowning in their own blood” on Sept. 11, 2011.
The now 22-year-old man listened impassively as Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Deborah Lawler described how Granat “kept his little paws clean counting money” as his two friends, Wyma and Qasem crept up the stairs of his parents home and beat them both to death with aluminum baseball bats.
“John and Maria could not possibly know or conceive what their only child, their baby boy, had planned,” Lawler said. “What the defendant did to his own parents is unimaginable. It takes our breath away with its sheer callousness.”
Cook County Sheriff’s detectives were on to the high schooler from the start after he said he’d been at home all night and fallen asleep in the basement. Granat’s alibi began falling apart after he was confronted about being pulled over by a Palos Heights police officer in an early morning traffic stop.
Furious and angry that his parents threw away his “little marijuana plants growing in the backyard and grounded him,” Lawler said Granat began plotting to kill his parents in the summer of 2011.
“He began scouting out people to execute his plan. He chose his best friend, Christopher Wyma, and good friends Ehab Qasem and Mohammed Salahat,” Lawler said. “He didn’t care how it was done or if his parents suffered horribly.”
After the fourth accomplice, Salahat, dropped Wyma and Qasem at the end of the Granats’ block, they were met by the young master plotter, who was hiding outside the family’s home in the bushes. Salahat left the pair and drove around the area while the murders were going down.
Lawler said that Granat made sure the first thing his friends saw when they entered the garage of the home that his father “built with his own two hands” were the stacks of money piled on a work bench.
“He made sure that his accomplices saw the stacks and stacks of one-hundred dollar bills that he had already gathered and stolen from his parents,” Lawler said.
During their first ascent up the stairs to the couple’s bedroom, Wyma’s and Qasem’s bats clinked together, sending both “speed walking” back to the garage, where Granat told them to “take care of it.”
As Qasem and Wyma stood over the sleeping couple with bats raised, John and Maria “cried and screamed” with the initial blows. As Maria took her last breaths, Granat handed Qasem a knife and told him to “finish it.”
“Maria’s skull was so badly beaten, it fell apart in [medical examiner James Philkins’ hands] like broken egg shell,” Lawler said.
Qasem stabbed the woman in the stomach, then handed the knife to Granat, while Qasem went up to the attic to look for a safe with a money.
Lawler told the jurors that in Illinois, a person is legally responsible for his or her conduct when soliciting others to do criminal acts.
“He didn’t have the courage to do it alone,” she said. “His (Granat’s) hand was on that bat and on that knife. So was Mohammed Salahat. He was responsible for the strike of those bats and the stab of that knife.”
Granat’s assistant public defender LaFonzo Palmer called the case horrific and said the teen didn’t kill his parents.
“John didn’t plan to kill anyone,” Palmer said. “He didn’t choose the weapons or tell anyone what to say to police.”
Palmer said John Granat was stupid and hanging out with the bad kids.
“He was a dumb kid trying to buy friends and be a tough guy,” Palmer said. “He hung out at Chris’s house, getting high, doing blunt runs, because his father who’s a cop and his mother don’t care.”
Palmer also tried to impeach co-defendant Qasem’s testimony, stating his testimony was “bought” by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office in exchange for a plea deal of one count of first degree murder and 40 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. Salahat, the driver, accepted a similar plea deal last year.
Jurors listened to five days of testimony before Judge Neil Linehan in the Bridgeview Courthouse, including interrogation videos, crime scene photos, testimony by police officers, the Cook County Medical Examiner and cellular tower experts.
John Granat and Wyma were being tried together but with separate juries at the Bridgeview Courthouse.
John Granat is due back for post-trial motions on Feb. 24, but sentencing is not expected to take place. His attorney, Palmer, told Judge Neil Linehan that he planned to bring “mitigation experts” to testify at Granat’s sentencing.
Thomas Griffiths a teenager from England has admitted to the murder of seventeen year old Ellie Gould. According to court documents Thomas was over at the home of Ellie Gould when he brutally attacked the teenage girl stabbing her to death. This teen killer would plead guilty to the murder and will be sentenced later this year and has been told by the judge to expect a long sentence for the brutal murder
Thomas Griffiths More News
A 17-year-old boy has appeared in court to plead guilty to murdering A-level student Ellie Gould in her own home.
Thomas Griffiths admitted killing the teenager during a hearing at Bristol Crown Court on Thursday morning.
He was named after the lifting of reporting restrictions that previously barred the media from identifying him.
Judge Peter Blair said Thomas Griffiths, who will be sentenced on 8 November, had admitted an “extremely grave crime”.
Year 12 pupil Ellie, 17, died from multiple stab wounds at her family home in Calne, Wiltshire, on 3 May.
Griffiths, of Derry Hill, Wiltshire, spoke only to confirm his name and reply “guilty” when the murder charge was put to him.
He had initially denied having seen Ellie that day, or in the days before her death.
Speaking after the hearing, temporary detective chief inspector Jim Taylor said: “Ellie was murdered as a result of a violent attack.
“Ellie was in her first year of sixth form and was looking forward to the next steps in her education.
“Her parents have told me that she was considering a career in the police and had been looking into attending university.
“The options available to Ellie were endless but her hopes and dreams will now sadly never be realised.”
DCI Taylor added: “While I am pleased that Ellie’s family will not have to endure a lengthy trial process in court which would have caused them further distress, I know just how difficult this whole period has been for them.
“They should have been enjoying the school holidays with their daughter, but instead, they are coming to terms with the fact she has been cruelly taken away from them in unthinkable circumstances.”
Ellie’s family previously described the keen horse rider and animal-lover as “fun-loving and a joy to be around”.
They added: “We would like Ellie to be remembered as a kind, caring young lady with a wonderful, fun personality.”
Lisa Percy, headteacher of Hardenhuish School in Chippenham, where Ellie attended, said pupils and staff were “absolutely devastated” by her death.
“Ellie was an extremely popular student in our lower sixth form, who was preparing for her A-levels the following year,” she said.
“She was popular, friendly and very talented, and understandably her death has hugely impacted on our school.
“Her close-knit group of friends have shown strength beyond their young years in the months that have followed Ellie’s death, and have supported one another extraordinarily well.
“Our thoughts continue to remain with Ellie’s family at this time.”
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A teenager who stabbed his ex-girlfriend to death will not have his 12-and-a-half year sentence increased.
The family of Ellie Gould, 17, had called for a tougher sentence for Thomas Griffiths, who was also 17 when he murdered her at her home in Calne, Wiltshire, in May.
The Attorney General ruled he could not refer the case to the Court of Appeal as the sentence was not unduly lenient.
Ms Gould’s family said they were “bitterly disappointed”.
Last month, Griffiths admitted stabbing Ellie repeatedly in the neck in a “frenzied attack” before trying to make it appear her wounds were self-inflicted.
The court heard Griffiths spent an hour at the house before he drove home, changed his clothes and dumped a bag of Ellie’s items in a wood.
His case was referred to the Attorney General’s office under the unduly lenient sentence scheme which received “in excess of 101” referrals asking him to examine the prison term handed down by Bristol Crown Court last month.
A spokesperson said: “After careful consideration the Attorney General has concluded that he could not refer this case to the Court of Appeal.”
They said a referral could only be made if a sentence “is not just lenient but unduly so, such that the sentencing judge made a gross error or imposed a sentence outside the range of sentences reasonably available in the circumstances of the offence”.
“The threshold is a high one, and the test was not met in this case,” it said
Following the decision, the Gould family said they were disappointed that “once again the British justice system has not only let us but also the nation down”.
“When the Attorney General quotes in his letter to us that Griffiths’ crime not only shocked him, but also the nation, yet doesn’t feel it is appropriate to refer it to the Court of Appeal to have the lenient sentence reviewed, there is something very wrong with criminal justice in Britain today.
“All we can do as a family is fight Griffiths’ parole when the time comes, to keep such a dangerous individual off Britain’s streets and keep the public safe.”
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