Teen gets prison, another pleads in kidnapping

GEORGETOWN – A 15-year-old girl, Junia McDonald, who was charged as an adult in an elderly woman's carjacking and kidnapping was sentenced Friday to spend 16 years in prison as part of a 25-year overall sentence.

And within hours, it appears, prosecutors invoked that stern sentence to convince the last remaining defendant in the kidnapping case, Jackeline Perez, to plead guilty rather than face trial.

McDonald had pleaded guilty to first-degree carjacking, first-degree kidnapping and second-degree conspiracy for her part in what happened to Margaret E. Smith, a stranger old enough to be her great-grandmother, in March 2013. McDonald and Perez stole Smith's car after Smith willingly gave them a ride, police and prosecutors said; then they shoved Smith in the trunk and kept her there, unfed, for two days as they drove to friends' homes and hotels before abandoning her in a remote Sussex County graveyard.

Two other teenagers who rode in the car for hours while they knew Smith was in the trunk have already been found guilty (although one of them, Rondaiges Harper, appealed his conviction).

Perez had been scheduled to stand trial next month. But instead she entered guilty pleas Friday to the same charges McDonald did, said Jason Miller, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office. Court records show Perez will be sentenced on Dec. 12.

McDonald's mother appeared in court Friday to ask Superior Court Judge Richard F. Stokes for mercy in sentencing her daughter. "I know deep down in my heart that my child, Junia McDonald, there's some hope for her," the mother, Carla Jackson said through tears. "Please don't take her life away from her without a second chance."

McDonald herself expressed remorse before sentencing. "I want to say I'm sorry to Mrs. Smith and her family," she told Stokes. "I want to apologize to all the families, including mine, that I've hurt."

Smith, the now 90-year-old victim, did not attend the sentencing, but described her injuries and lasting pain from her ordeal to the court in a pre-sentencing questionnaire.

Stokes said McDonald tried to minimize her involvement in the crime by denying she ever wanted to burn the car with Smith inside, something other defendants testified she and Perez had suggested be done. "You were not a casual participant in this criminal episode," he said from the bench. "The circumstances of your crimes are outrageous and beyond belief."

He handed down a sentence of 25 years behind bars, but suspended the sentence after 16 years had been served, at which point McDonald will serve additional years in home confinement and then probation.

Contact James Fisher at (302) 983-6772, on Twitter @JamesFisherTNJ or jfisher@delawareonline.com.