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Logan • The two 16-year-old boys accused of shooting and critically wounding a 14-year-old girl and leaving her in an empty canal in Smithfield last week will remain in a juvenile detention center, a judge ordered Wednesday.
The two teens were in court for the first time after charges were filed late Tuesday afternoon. Prosecutors allege that the boys lured Deserae Turner to a Smithfield canal, then shot her in the back of the head. Her parents reported her missing last Thursday, and she was discovered in the canal early Friday morning.
Each boy is charged in 1st District Juvenile Court with one count of first-degree felony attempted aggravated murder and aggravated robbery, as well as four counts each of second-degree felony obstructing justice.
The teens were brought separately into Judge Jeffrey Burbank's courtroom on Wednesday morning, both shackled at the waist and the ankles. Each boy sat quietly next to his attorney, while their parents sat nearby. The mother of one boy wiped tears from her eyes during the hearing.
The boys' defense attorneys did not oppose their being held in the Cache County juvenile facility, for now.
Despite requests from Cache County Attorney James Swink to quickly set a preliminary hearing in the case, the judge opted instead to give defense attorneys time to review the case before moving forward. The teens will be back in court on Feb. 28 for another detention hearing. It is likely that a preliminary hearing will also be set on that date.
A representative with Juvenile Justice Services asked the judge on Wednesday to move one of the boys to a detention center in Weber County — a request which Burbank denied. There is a staffing issue with needing to keep the two boys separated and in different wings of the small facility, the representative said.
The county attorney said his office will seek to have the case moved to the adult system using Utah's Serious Youth Offender statute. The law allows prosecutors to push a case into adult court — and for youths to face the same consequences as if they were adults — if the juvenile is 16 or 17 and has committed one of several designated felonies.
At the preliminary hearing, prosecutors will present evidence and a judge will determine if there is probable cause for the case to move forward. That judge also will decide whether the case should remain in the juvenile system or move to the adult court.
"This is as serious of a crime we can possibly have," Swink said after Wednesday's hearing. "There is a life in the balance."
Turner is currently in a medically-induced coma in critical condition at Primary Children's Hospital, according to a family spokeswoman.
Court officials say neither of the boys has any prior history of juvenile delinquency.
Prosecutors allege that the boys lured Turner to the canal under the guise of selling her a knife. They had initially planned to use knives they had brought to kill the girl, according to charging documents, but one of the boys reported to police that he also carried a .22-caliber revolver as a "secondary weapon," if the original plan failed.
That teen also admitted to police that he shot Turner in the back of the head, according to the charging documents, and later penned a written apology to Turner's family saying he was "so so so sorry."
After the shooting, the boys allegedly took Turner's backpack, cellphone and iPod, along with money from her purse.
When interviewed by police, the alleged shooter said he stashed the gun under his brother's mattress after the shooting — the same location from where he had initially retrieved it.
The other teen took the spent casing from the crime scene, according to prosecutors, as a "memento." Police found the casing "displayed" on the boy's window sill, according to charges.
The boys destroyed the girl's electronic items, according to charging documents, and threw them into a canal.
The second teen also was interviewed by police, but gave a number of conflicting stories. Initially, he told police that he had not been in contact with the other boy — though messages between the two indicated that the girl's attempted murder was planned, according to charging documents.
Then the teen changed his story, saying he met his friend at the canal and watched him shoot a girl he did not recognize. He tried to run away, he allegedly told police, but the other teen boy caught up to him.
His interview with police ended when he invoked his right to an attorney.
It is unclear from charging documents how the teens knew each other, or what the possible motive for wanting to kill the girl might be.
Charges state that when one of the boys was asked why they would steal Turner's things, he replied, "Greed."
The Salt Lake Tribune generally does not identify juveniles who have been charged with crimes, unless they have been certified to stand trial in adult court.