Raul Castro was fourteen years old when he murdered a four year old boy. According to court documents Raul Castro would lure a four year old boy into his home and would sexually assault him. When the boy started to cry Raul would put the child into a bathtub where he would drown the child. Castro would put the body of the child into the dryer where he would be discovered. This teen killer would be convicted and sentenced to life in prison with a chance of parole after thirty three years
Raul Castro 2023 Information
CDCR Number
AH0674
Age
24
Admission Date
10/05/2011
Current Location
Sierra Conservation Center
Location Link
Directions
Parole Eligible Date (Month/Year)
08/2030
Raul Castro Other News
A Mendota teenager was sentenced Friday morning for the murder of his four-year-old neighbor.
15-year-old Raul Castro will spend 33 years in the Department of Corrections before he is eligible for parole.
Castro must also register as a sex offender for life.
In April, a Fresno County judge found him guilty of sexually assaulting and killing Alex Mercado in October 2009.
Alex’s body was found stuffed in a clothes dryer in Castro’s home.
Raul Castro More News
A state appeals court has reduced the prison sentence of a Central California teenager convicted of molesting and drowning his 4-year-old neighbor and then hiding the boy’s body in a clothes dryer.
The 5th District Court of Appeal ruled that the trial judge erred in adding eight years to Raul Castro’s sentence for his sex-crime convictions. The Mendota teen was convicted of forcible sodomy on a child and a forcible lewd act on a child in addition to first-degree murder in the 2009 slaying of Alex Mercado.
Authorities say Castro, then 14, drowned the preschooler in a bathtub after Mercado said he would tell his mother about the sexual assault.
The Fresno Bee reports that the appeals court reduced Castro’s sentence last week from 33 years- to-life to 25 years-to-life in prison
Raul Castro is currently incarcerated at the Sierra Conservation Center
Raul Castro Release Date
Raul Castro is serving a life sentence however is eligible for parole in 2030
Raul Castro More News
f you’d asked the families of Alex Mercado and Raul Castro two years ago, where they thought they’d be today, they’d probably never say in the Fresno County Courthouse at their sons’ murder trial.
“It’s had, but I’m trying not to cry, just try to hang in there the best that I can,” Elsa Castro, Raul Castro’s mom, said.
Elsa is still in shock.
“My son is a really good person. He’s never been into trouble. I’m going through a lot, but I’m here, hanging in there,” she said.
But on a taped interview with investigators, Castro revealed the horrific details of exactly what happened October 30th, 2009.
{}”Did you have an urge to kill him? Or did you have an urge to do something sexual, or both?” An investigator asked. “The urge was just to kill.” Raul said.
Castro told detectives, he’d been having “urges” to kill for a couple of years.
And on that day in October, he saw an opportunity when Alex Mercado was playing outside.
That’s when he lured him into his house, then into the bathroom, where he sexually assaulted the four-year-old boy.
He told detectives he’d panicked when Alex started crying.
So he laid on top of him in the bathtub to drown him.
“Do you feel sorry for what you did?” The investigator asked on the tape. “I do feel sorry for what I’ve done. I should’ve taken his place instead of him dying.” Castro responded.
Raul told police he stuffed Alex’s body in the clothes-dryer, and then went to bed, hoping it would all go away.
The next day, police found him during a search of the neighborhood.
“I walked into the kitchen, I opened up the pantry, Elsa knelt down and opened the dryer,” Deputy Matt Hamilton, Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, said. “She started screaming uncontrollably.”
Castro is facing charges of first-degree murder, molestation and kidnapping.
He is being charged as an adult.
And if convicted, faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after 47 years.
Raul Castro waived his right to a jury trial earlier this month.
So the case is being heard by Fresno County Superior Court judge Jonathan Conklin.
Regina and Margaret DeFrancisco are two teens from Illinois who were charged in the murder of Regina boyfriend Oscar Velazquez. According to court documents Regina and Margaret DeFrancisco lured the victim to their home and then shot the man before wrapping up his body and setting him on fire. The two teen girls would be initially questioned by the police but before they could be arrested they would flee the area and be on the run for the next two years. Margaret DeFrancisco would be arrested in March 2002 and Margaret DeFrancisco was arrested in October 2002.
The two teen killers would be convicted and Regina DeFrancisco was sentenced to 35 years in prison and Margaret DeFrancisco was sentenced to 46 years in prison.
Margaret DeFrancisco 2023 Information
R77247 – DEFRANCISCO, MARGARET
Parent Institution:
LOGAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER
Offender Status:
IN CUSTODY
Location:
LOGAN
Regina DeFrancisco 2023 Information
R76804 – DEFRANCISCO, REGINA
Parent Institution:
LOGAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER
Offender Status:
IN CUSTODY
Location:
LOGAN
Regina And Margaret DeFrancisco Other News
A childhood friend took the stand Tuesday in the murder trial of Margaret DeFrancisco, the 20-year-old Chicago woman on trial for the slaying of her sister’s boyfriend.
Veronica Garcia testified DeFrancisco asked her for the gun that killed Oscar Velazquez four years ago.
“I said probably, and she said, ‘Come to my house,’” Garcia said.
Garcia, who was charged with helping to cover up the slaying, also said killing Velazquez was never part of the plan that DeFrancisco and her sister, Regina, devised. According to Garcia, the two sisters just wanted “to scare Oscar for his money.”
The DeFrancisco sisters were charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery. Regina, 21, was found guilty by a jury in July and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Margaret’s trial ended with a hung jury. Her new trial began Monday.
Garcia, a key witness in Margaret DeFrancisco’s earlier trial, offered similar testimony Tuesday.
Prosecutors allege the DeFrancisco sisters lured Velazquez to their Pilsen neighborhood home on the afternoon of June 6, 2000, with the intention of robbing him of his money and car.
On Tuesday, the new jury listened to more than two hours of testimony from Garcia, who struck a deal with prosecutors to testify against her childhood friend in exchange for a five-year prison sentence.
Garcia then detailed the events of June 6 for jurors. She said she and her boyfriend delivered the gun to Margaret DeFrancisco’s house, and she stayed there.
“(The sisters) were talking to each other about where they were going to rob him,” Garcia told the jury.
When Velazquez arrived, Garcia said, Regina DeFrancisco called him to the basement. She said Margaret DeFrancisco followed him, closely holding the gun behind her back.
“Maybe 20 to 30 seconds (later), I heard a gunshot,” Garcia said. “I got up and ran downstairs.”
She said she saw Velazquez lying face down on the floor with blood coming out of his ear, and his right hand was shaking. Garcia said she also saw the two sisters going through his pockets, and they found a gun in Velazquez’s waistband.
“The whole time I was asking them, screaming at them, ‘Why did you do it?’” Garcia said.
She said the sisters wrapped Velazquez’s body in flowery sheets, and she helped them drag it outside into the trunk of Velazquez’s car. Prosecutors say the DeFrancisco sisters set the body on fire using nail polish remover.
Regina And Margaret DeFrancisco Videos
Regina and Margaret DeFrancisco Photos
Regina And Margaret DeFrancisco FAQ
Regina DeFrancisco Now
Regina Defrancisco is currently incarcerated at the Logan Correctional Center
Margaret Defrancisco Now
Margaret DeFrancisco is currently incarcerated at the Logan Correctional Center
Regina DeFrancisco Release Date
Regina DeFrancisco current release date is 2038
Margaret DeFrancisco Release Date
Margaret DeFrancisco current release date is 2048
Regina And Margaret DeFrancisco More News
In April 2000, Oscar Velazquez, a 22-year-old hard-working Chicago truck driver gave 17-year-old Regina DeFrancisco a ride home.
Two months later, she and her sister repaid that favor by shooting him in the back of the head and burning his remains before evading police capture for two years.
On June 6, 2000, the incinerated body of an unidentified Hispanic male was found on the south side of Chicago. Detectives had scant evidence to go on, according to “Killer Siblings,” airing Saturdays at 6/5c on Oxygen.
The victim had been wrapped in a bed sheet with blood on it. Nail polish remover, a possible accelerant, was found nearby.
As authorities sought to identify the victim, they looked for a motive. Gang violence? Robbery? A jealous lover? As they worked their way from ground zero, they confirmed that the cause of death was a bullet to the back of the head
On June 8, about 36 hours after the discovery of the crime, the victim was identified by his mother as Oscar Velazquez. He’d never been arrested and had no gang affiliations. He was a “good, clean-cut kid,” investigators told “Killer Siblings.”
As detectives dug into the case, their focus turned to Velazquez’s car, a white Camaro, which had gone missing. Witnesses told investigators that the vehicle was seen being driven by two girls.
When the car was eventually recovered, it was gutted and torched “beyond evidentiary value.” There were no telltale fingerprints or evidence to help further detectives’ work in the murder case.
“Whoever did the homicide was trying to cover their tracks … by burning the body and then the car,” Steven Konow, a detective with the Chicago Police Department, told “Killer Siblings.”
However, Velazquez’s phone records provided detectives an invaluable clue, as they looked into conversations he had in the hours preceding his murder.
The logs turned up the name of Regina DeFrancisco, a 17-year-old who lived with her 16-year-old sister, Margaret, and single mother, Nora, in the Lower West Side community of Pilsen, the Chicago Tribune reported in 2004.
Regina had a reputation for being magnetic and charming, according to “Killer Siblings.” Her little sister looked up to her and emulated her. So when Regina started to dabble in questionable behavior, including hanging out with gang member Johnny Rivera, Margaret followed her lead. The girls began to go off the rails.
Caught by narcotics officers in Rivera’s apartment where there was two kilos of cocaine, Regina had been hit with a drug arrest. After a court appearance linked to the bust, she was outside court room and by chance, Velazquez drove past at that time. She asked him for a ride home, and he obliged, according to “Killer Siblings.” The two began dating.
Authorities made a beeline to speak with Regina and Margaret about the Velazquez homicide, Konow told producers, and they found the girls at home.
There, the sisters corroborated each other’s accounts, which were intended to clear the girls from suspicion.
During her interview Regina emphasized her innocence and told investigators that they ought to be looking at Rivera.
But detectives questioned why Regina was pointing the finger at someone else. Rivera was eventually cleared of suspicion, and the 17-year-old girl’s strategy, meant to deflect blame from her, backfired and intensified it.
Investigators focused on Regina and considered the likelihood of Margaret’s involvement.
A week after the slaying, Frank Main, a journalist with the Chicago Sun-Times, told producers that officials had enough evidence to get a warrant to search the DeFrancisco home.
As authorities combed through the residence, various red flags emerged. Sheets in the house matched the pattern of the one in which Velazquez’s body had been wrapped. In the basement, Luminol revealed significant traces of blood that had been cleaned up, Al Graf, detective with the Chicago Police Department, told producers. A bullet casing, a match to the same kind of pistol cartridge used to kill Velazquez, was also found.
But a witness had previously came forward and reported seeing three people loading a heavy object into Velazquez’s trunk. This was the missing piece that remained: Who was the third party spotted on the night of the murder near Velazquez’s car?
The answer soon emerged: the sisters’ friend, Veronica Garcia, 15. On June 22, she was brought in for questioning When asked about events on the night of the homicide, she clammed up and turned evasive.
Authorities told her that she could be charged with murder, and Garcia then detailed what had happened before the murder and during it.
The DeFrancisco sisters had duped Velazquez into believing Regina needed $1,000 for bail money. He gave it to her, and when he asked to get his money back they lured him to their house with the promise of repayment.
The sisters had gotten their hands on a gun with Garcia’s help, and Margaret shot Velazquez as he descended the stairs to the basement, where they’d spread plastic to help hide the crime.
The trio wrapped his body up in sheets, dumped him into the trunk of his Camaro, and drove him to a vacant lot, where they set him ablaze after dousing his body with nail polish remover.
By the time investigators had confirmed that the blood in the DeFrancisco basement belonged to Velazquez, the sisters had fled. In July 2000, U.S. Marshals joined the hunt for the suspect sisters. After months passed, authorities enlisted the help of “America’s Most Wanted” to spread the word about the fugitive family members.
The airing yielded no successful leads, and the case went cold. In March 2002, though, the episode re-aired and officials got a break. Margaret was found in Roscoe, Illinois, and brought back to Chicago to face formal charges.
Seven months later, Regina was finally tracked down in Dallas, after an incident involving a stolen car.
Both sisters were charged with premeditated murder. In July 2004, they were tried together before two separate juries. Regina DeFrancisco’s verdict came back first. She was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
A day later, a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case of Margaret DeFrancisco. She “walked out of a Cook County courtroom free on bail,” reported the Chicago Tribune at the time.
She was retried and convicted in December 2004 and sentenced to 46 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
For her role in concealing the crime, Garcia was sentenced to 5 years in prison.
The DeFrancisco siblings have each filed unsuccessful appeals.
Michael Carneal was fourteen years old when he murdered three fellow students. According to court documents Michael Carneal brought a shotgun and a rifle wrapped in a blanket to Heath High School in Kentucky. Michael Carneal would open fire on a group of praying students killing three and injuring five. This teen killer was quickly arrested and sentenced to multiple life sentences however he is eligible for parole after twenty five years
Michael Carneal 2023 Information
Name:
CARNEAL, MICHAEL ADAM Active Inmate
Offender Photo(Click image to enlarge)
PID # / DOC #:
246005 / 151127
Institution Start Date:
6/01/2001
Expected Time To Serve (TTS):
LIFE WITH PAROLE AFTER 25 YEARS
Classification:
Medium (Level 3)
Minimum Expiration of Sentence Date (Good Time Release Date): ?
LIFE WITH PAROLE AFTER 25 YEARS
Parole Eligibility Date:
11/16/2022
Maximum Expiration of Sentence Date:
LIFE WITH PAROLE AFTER 25 YEARS
Location:
Kentucky State Reformatory
Age:
36
Race:
White
Gender:
M
Eye Color:
Blue
Hair Color:
Brown
Height:
5′ 11″
Weight:
150
Michael Carneal Other News
On the morning of Dec. 1, 1997, then 14-year-old Michael Carneal arrived at Heath High School. While many thought it would be normal day, Carneal entered the school carrying a pistol, loaded clips, shot gun shells, and hundreds of .22 rounds, along with two shotguns and two rifles wrapped in a blanket. He told his sister the blanket was holding a school project.
He then approached and opened fire on a group of students praying. He killed three teenage girls and hurt five other classmates. Carneal then dropped the pistol and surrendered to the school’s principal.
He pleaded guilty a year later, and was sentenced to life in prison. He was also required to receive mental health care while in prison.
Investigators say Carneal had been bullied, and suffered from paranoia. After the shooting, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and had to be hospitalized several times due to psychosis.
In 2012, Carneal attempted to withdraw his plea, saying he was mentally ill at the time he made it. A month later, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals denied his request, stating he could have acted sooner.
He is up for parole in 2023.
Michael Carneal FAQ
Michael Carneal Now
Michael Carneal is currently incarcerated at the Kentucky State Reformatory
Michael Carneal Release Date
Michael Carneal was sentenced to life in prison, he is eligible for parole in 2023
Michael Carneal More News
In 1997 Michael Carneal walked into Heath High School in Paducah and opened fire on his classmates, killing three students and injuring five others. For the last five years we’ve been left to wonder why. He recently sat down with our Carrie Harned for his first ever television interview since the attack.
Michael Carneal seems to clearly remember the day of the shootings. “I remember pulling out the gun and holding it in front of me,” Carneal recalls. “I really wasn’t focused on the people I was focused on my hands.”
On that fateful day in Paducah, Michael Carneal sealed the fate of three teenage girls in a matter of seconds. But he says the events that led up to the shootings were years in the making. “There was a pecking order and I was probably towards the bottom of it.”
Carneal did, however, point to one event in particular that he identified as the starting point of all the trouble. “There was an incident in middle school that they put in the school newspaper that I was gay,” he said, “and ever since that, that label stuck with me. Everybody, if they wanted to get to me, they would put ‘faggot’ or ‘queer’ on the end.”
Despite the constant teasing, Carneal says he was desperate to make friends.
I would buy something and tell people I stole it because I thought that’s what they liked,” Carneal said, “that they wanted to be friends with a delinquent type person.”
After the shootings, Carneal avoided a trial by pleading guilty but mentally ill. Currently, he’s housed in the Kentucky State Reformatory’s psychiatric unit, where he takes medication for depression.
Carneal says he has been dealing with feelings of extreme sadness since kindergarten. “I was angry, I was lonely, I was afraid. I was just full of emotions and I didn’t know how to control them.”
So what he did was plan. At first, his ideas seemed strangely innocent. “If everybody left the school, then I could get on the intercom and talk.”
But then his thoughts grew more sinister. “Before the shootings, I would think about certain people who I would have liked to shot or hit or done something to.”
On December 1st, 1997, Michael Carneal stopped thinking and started taking action. He came to school that day armed with five guns and 1,000 rounds of ammo.
“The first place that I came upon was the lobby where everybody was just standing around,” he recalls. “And for some reason, I just decided I was going to do it there.”
He doesn’t remember much about the shooting itself except its aftermath. “I just remember stopping shooting and seeing a bunch of people on the ground screaming and crying.”
Now, facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars, Carneal is now aware of the destruction he caused — with plenty of time to think through his deadly plan in ways his 14-year-old mind could not.
“For some reason, I thought that if I did that, I thought that all my problems would just go away,” Carneal said. “But I never really thought about what would happen to the people.”
And looking back now, Carneal says he truly believes one thing could have stopped him. “If somebody would have just pulled me to the side and talked to me about what was going on, I probably — things would have been a lot different. It was in my mind so much it just became like I needed to bring it into action for some reason.”
Michael Carneal pleaded guilty but mentally in October 1998 to the attempted murder of the wounded and the murder of Kayce Steger, Nicole Hadley and Jessica James.
He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years, so he won’t be eligible for release until 2022.
Carneal was ineligible for the death penalty because of his age at the time of the crime.
The Kentucky Parole Board on Monday ordered the man who, at age 14, opened fire on classmates in a 1997 school shooting to spend the rest of his life in prison, denying his request for parole 25 years later.
Michael Carneal, now 39, told parole board members last week that he would live with his parents and continue his mental health treatment if they agreed to release him.
He admitted that he still hears voices like the ones that told him to steal a neighbor’s pistol and fire it into a prayer circle in the crowded lobby of Heath High School, located in West Paducah, in December 1997. However, Carneal said that with therapy and medication, he has learned to control his behavior.
Those killed were 14-year-old Nicole Hadley, 17-year-old Jessica James, and 15-year-old Kayce Steger. Five more were injured, including Missy Jenkins Smith, who was paralyzed and uses a wheelchair.
Those killed were 14-year-old Nicole Hadley, 17-year-old Jessica James, and 15-year-old Kayce Steger. Five more were injured, including Missy Jenkins Smith, who was paralyzed and uses a wheelchair.
The Courier Journal reported that the mass school shooting was one of the first in modern U.S. history. The Heath High School bloodshed came just 17 months before Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and one teacher and injured 21 more at Columbine High School in Colorado.
Jenkins Smith, who had considered Carneal a friend before she was paralyzed by one of his bullets, said she couldn’t sleep Sunday night because she was so anxious about the decision. She said she was in shock after hearing it. “It’s so hard to believe I don’t have to worry about it again,” she told the Associated Press. “I guess I’ll realize it later. It will sink in.”
Jenkins Smith watched the hearing from her home in Kirksey with another victim, Kelly Hard Alsip, and their families. Her oldest son, who is 15, had been worried that if Carneal were released, he would come to their house, she said.
Jenkins Smith, Alsip, others who were wounded in the shooting, and relatives of those who were killed spoke to the parole board panel last week. Most expressed a wish for Carneal to spend the rest of his life in prison. Carneal told the panel there are days that he believes he deserves to die for what he did, but on other days he thinks he could still do some good in the world.
Deryl Dedmon was eighteen years old when he murdered a man with his truck because of the color of his skin in Mississippi. According to court documents Deryl Demon and two other men were driving around when they saw the victim in a motel parking lot. The trio would jump out of the truck and proceeded to beat the victim . Deryl Dedmon would go back in hi truck and run over the victim repeatedly.
When this teen killer was arrested he would admit to police the only reason why they targeted the victim was the color of his skin. Deryl Dedmon would be convicted of the murder and hate crime charges. Due to the nature of his crime Dedmon is in the Federal Prison System.
Deryl Dedmon 2023 Information
DERYL PAUL DEDMON
Register Number: 16507-043
Age: 29
Race: White
Sex: Male
Located at: Otisville FCI
Release Date: 10/13/2055
Deryl Dedmon Other News
Deryl Dedmon, 19, received two concurrent life sentences for the racially motivated murder of 49-year-old James Craig Anderson, who died after being beaten and mowed down in a motel parking lot last year.
Dedmon’s admission that he killed Anderson because of his race doubled the teen’s penalty under the state’s hate crime statute.
“I was young, I was dumb, I was ignorant,” Dedmon said during his court hearing in Jackson. “I was full of hatred.”
The sentencing came as the shooting death of a black teenager by a neighborhood watch captain in Florida has again put a national spotlight on the issue of minorities being targeted due to the color of their skin.
Anderson, a Nissan auto worker, was returning to his car before dawn on June 26 when he was confronted by a group of white teenagers in a motel parking lot.
The teens had been drinking at a birthday party and drove to Jackson specifically to harass African-Americans, said Hinds County Assistant District Attorney Scott Rogillio.
Anderson was physically attacked by the group before Dedmon deliberately ran over him with a Ford F-250 truck, Rogillio said. Anderson died at the scene.
Dedmon yelled “white power” during the attack, Rogillio said.
“Your prejudice has brought a great stain on the state of Mississippi,” Circuit Court Judge Jeff Weill Sr. told Dedmon.
Mississippi has a long legacy of racial discrimination and was a focal point of Civil Rights activity during the 1960s and since. The racist Ku Klux Klan was prominent in the state for decades and remnants of the group remain.
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Deryl Dedmon More News
James Craig Anderson’s partner, James Bradfield, said the couple’s young son sleeps in his bed now, because “he doesn’t want those people to get me.”
In the victim impact statement, Bradfield, who was too emotional to speak and had a prosecutor read his statement, told Deryl Paul Dedmon, John Aaron Rice, and Dylan Wade Butler that he hoped they never see the light of day again.
“There’s no room on earth for people like you,” he said.
The trio were sentenced to federal prison on Tuesday as a result of Anderson’s 2011 death, a hate crime in which he was beaten and run over by a truck because of the color of his skin.
The three pleaded guilty in March 2012 to one count of conspiracy and one count of committing a hate crime. U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves sentenced Dedmon to 50 years and five years to be served concurrently; John Aaron Rice to 18 ½ years and five years to be served concurrently; and Dylan Wade Butler to seven years and five years to be served concurrently. None of them are eligible for probation.
The judge said Dedmon’s federal sentence will run concurrent with his state sentence.
The three are part of a group of 10 young white people who have no all pleaded guilty to coming to Jackson, which they called “Jafrica,” to harass and assault African-Americans.
Anderson’s sister, Barbara Anderson Young, gave an emotional statement in which she frequently looked straight at the defendants.
“Surely the violence you committed will fall upon your own head,” she said, adding that her brother “lives on in me, and in our family. He also lives in you, the last to see him alive on this earth.”
Butler wrote a letter to the family, part of which he read in court. He told the court about how he came from a mixed race family, with a black stepfather and stepsister and mixed cousins.
“I wish every day I could take everything back, not for me, but for the man who lost his life…” he said. “I never had a hatred for African Americans.
Dylan Cardeilhac was already in jail awaiting sentencing for an armed robbery when he murdered a correctional guard when he was sixteen years old . Dylan Cardeilhac according to court documents would attack the correctional guard and would choke her until she stopped breathing and causing her death. This teen killer would end up being convicted of the murder and would be sentenced to life in prison
Dylan Cardeilhac 2023 Information
Dylan Cardeilhac – Current Facility – Tecumseh State Correctional Facility – Parole Review Date – 2024
Dylan Cardeilhac Other News
The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the sentence of a Torrington teenager convicted of choking a Scotts Bluff County Detention Center guard and causing her death.
A jury convicted Dylan Cardeilhac — then 16 — in November 2014 of second-degree murder in the Feb. 16, 2014, death of Amanda Baker. Baker died two days after Cardeilhac attacked the woman, choking her until she was unconscious.
In February 2015, District Court Judge Travis O’Gorman sentenced Dylan Cardeilhac to imprisonment of 60 years to life. In his appeal, Cardeilhac said that the judge failed to comply with proper juvenile sentencing principles. Defense attorneys argued that the sentence was excessive.
Dylan Cardeilhac and his attorney also said that the court erred in advising the jury that it would deliberate in the case until 9 p.m. before breaking for the day and alleged jury misconduct.
According to the appeal, one jury had told Dylan Cardeilhac’s attorneys that after six hours of deliberation, she had been the sole holdout, wanting to convict Cardeilhac of manslaughter rather than second-degree murder. She allegedly said that two of the jurors were “extremely belittling and belligerent” as some of the other jurors made statements to try to persuade her to change her vote.
During that exchange, one of the jurors offered to demonstrate to the woman — who consented — what it was like being choked from behind. Soon after the demonstration, the juror said, she changed her vote from manslaughter to second-degree murder. However, the juror said that she did not feel pressured to change her vote. The defense had previously objected to this re-enactment, asking for a new trial as they felt the demonstration was extraneous prejudicial information received outside of court. The court did not grant a mistrial in the case.
The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that no juror misconduct had occurred. Reenactments or other exercises by which the jury tests the evidence presented at trial are generally considered appropriate jury conduct, the ruling said.
Jurors had been instructed that they could deliberate until 9 p.m. and would return to the deliberations the next morning, if a verdict was not reached. The Nebraska Supreme Court rejected the defense’s argument that the instruction pressured the jury to come to a deliberation and that it was an appropriate instruction.
Dylan Cardeilhac More News
A judge sentenced a Torrington, Wyoming, teenager convicted of strangling a Scotts Bluff County Corrections officer to 60 years to life in prison on Thursday.
A jury convicted Dylan Cardeilhac, 16, in November of second-degree murder in the Feb. 16, 2014, death of Amanda Baker. Baker, 24, died two days after Cardeilhac attacked the woman, choking her until she was unconscious.
In sentencing Cardeilhac, Judge Travis O’Gorman said he thought that the teen’s violent criminal history and his lack of remorse demonstrated that society needed protection from him.
“This case is just a great tragedy,” he said. “Most of all for the innocent victims in this case — a child lost a mother, a family lost a daughter, a community has lost a someone.”
O’Gorman and Scotts Bluff County Attorney Doug Warner pointed to a lack of remorse shown by Cardeilhac since Baker’s death. O’Gorman noted that Cardeilhac said he “didn’t give a (expletive)” about the killing and that he had said, “I am at the top of the killers.” Warner had pointed to similar statements in arguing that Cardeilhac needed to receive a significant sentence.
Cardeilhac’s attorneys, James Mowbray and Todd Lancaster, presented evidence that Cardeilhac shouldn’t be sentenced to life in prison because of his age.
A psychologist from Boys Town testified that brain development in teens makes them more immature. Defense attorneys argued that Cardeilhac needed to be sentenced to a facility where he could receive rehabilitation.
Dylan Cardeilhac FAQ
Dylan Cardeilhac Now
Dylan Cardeilhac is currently incarcerated at the Tecumseh State Correctional Facility
Dylan Cardeilhac Release Date
Dylan Cardeilhac is serving life in prison however is eligible for parole in 2024
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