MIAMI – A Florida judge sentenced a 16-12 months-previous Florida boy to existence in prison on Friday for fatally stabbing a 13-year-outdated classmate on Mother’s Day in 2021.
Aiden Fucci, 16, was 14 when he stabbed Tristyn Bailey at minimum 114 periods in the woods near wherever the teenagers lived in north Florida, prosecutors mentioned.
“This case is almost certainly the most hard and surprising circumstance that this county, St. Johns County, has dealt with,” Judge Lee R. Smith explained prior to ordering Fucci to prison for everyday living.
Fucci, who pleaded responsible just just before his trial was established to start out in February, was not suitable for the death penalty due to the fact of his young age at the time of the crime.
His circumstance may well be reviewed in 25 a long time, in accordance to Florida legislation.
His lawyers had sought a 40-12 months sentence.
In advance of invoking the sentence, the decide spoke to Bailey’s relatives, noting the incredible toll the girl’s slaying has experienced on them.
“Enable ‘Bailey Sunday Fundays’ to return to your property,” he claimed, including that Tristyn would have wanted her loved ones to have entertaining yet again.
He also explained he appreciated that her father, Forrest Bailey, was individual with the courtroom proceedings.
The judge’s get followed two times of testimony in a sentencing hearing.
On Wednesday, associates of the Bailey relatives browse psychological target effects statements to the courtroom. Her more mature sister, Alexis Bailey, began her assertion by dropping 114 aqua-colored stone hearts into a jar — one for just about every stab wound her sister endured.
Fucci’s grandmother, Deborah Spiwak, also attended that hearing, pleading for mercy for her grandson on Wednesday.
“Make sure you will not acquire him out of our lives for good. I know there is some superior in Aiden,” she explained.
The judge mentioned her remark on Friday.
“That took a good deal of courage. That was not quick, for her. But it confirmed this court docket that he experienced a great, secure home natural environment,” Smith explained of Fucci’s upbringing.
Fucci and his dad and mom each and every wrote letters to the judge, apologizing for his steps and asking for mercy.
Investigators claimed Fucci experienced told many good friends he planned to get rid of an individual, nevertheless it was not clear whether Bailey was his meant concentrate on from the beginning.
