Adult trial for teens in kidnapping of woman, 89

Three teenagers accused of kidnapping an 89-year-old woman and keeping her in the trunk of a car for days before abandoning her in a graveyard will be tried as adults, not in Family Court as the defendants had hoped, a Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday.

Judge Richard F. Stokes, in three linked rulings, said the trials of the defendants' – Junia McDonald, 15; Jackeline Perez, 16; and Rondaiges Harper, who turned 19 this week but was 17 when he was charged – should be kept in Superior Court due to the "seriousness of the crime," along with other factors.

One allegation in particular made during court hearings – that Perez and McDonald suggested to co-defendants they should burn the car with the woman inside its trunk – is "like a war crime," suggesting those two teens were "capable of terrible depravity," Stokes wrote.

The kidnapped woman, Margaret E. Smith, told police two girls forced her into the trunk of her own car on March 18, 2013, after she agreed to give them a ride home from a Milford convenience store. She was found disoriented and disheveled in a graveyard in western Sussex County the morning of March 20.

That night, McDonald, Perez and Harper were detained by Delaware State Police as they were riding in Smith's car. They were subsequently charged with robbery, carjacking, kidnapping and conspiracy.

From the beginning, prosecutors have painted McDonald and Perez as the ringleaders of Smith's kidnapping, and a grand jury indictment handed down in April 2013 charged them with first-degree kidnapping, robbery, carjacking and conspiracy. Harper and a fourth defendant, Philip Brewer, then 17, were indicted on fewer counts of carjacking, kidnapping and conspiracy.

Attorneys for Perez, McDonald and Harper had sought to convince the judge their clients should be tried in Family Court, where young offenders most often encounter the courts. The judge's ruling means they will be tried in Superior Court as if they were adult defendants.

Attorneys for Perez and McDonald did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday. John Brady, representing Harper, said he had been in a different client's trial all day Wednesday and had not been able to read Stokes's ruling, so he declined to comment.

Brewer reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty and testify at the trials of his co-defendants. Stokes's rulings on Perez and McDonald lean heavily on one detail Brewer told police and prosecutors about the many hours when he, Harper, Perez and McDonald allegedly spent riding around Sussex County in Smith's car, with her inside.

At one point on March 19, Brewer said, the girls floated a plan: "They were going to burn the car with her [Smith] in it." That didn't happen, but Stokes wrote in his ruling the testimony suggesting it was considered by Perez and McDonald was a critical consideration for the judge.

"The supposed intentions of Perez and McDonald, if believed by the trier of fact, show them, individually and separately, capable of terrible depravity. They show impulses of attempted murder," Stokes said. "There is a disturbing theme of thinly veiled force, coercion, and the total disregard for Mrs. Smith's safety during her kidnapping... these circumstances are like a war crime and were the worst possible nightmare for the victim."

In his rulings, Stokes recounts each teenagers' past brushes with the juvenile justice system, as well as their stints in alternative schools after discipline problems sent them out of regular public schools. Perez in particular, Stokes's rulings show, was a repeat offender from a young age, starting with an arrest in seventh grade for burglary, followed by guilty pleas to charges of theft, trespass, shoplifting, and offensive touching, along with a March 2013 arrest for drug possession.

That history, Stokes said, weighs in favor of trying Perez as an adult.

"This is not a case involving a juvenile's immature, cognitively unstable childish misdeeds. This is a case involving a juvenile's immature, cognitively unstable violent criminal behavior," the judge wrote.

While McDonald had no prior Family Court record, Stokes noted, the judge said she acknowledged "escalating misconduct" at an alternative school she attended before her arrest. In Harper's case, Stokes wrote, Family Court officials who had seen him before recommended his case remain in Superior Court, and the judge agreed.

Stokes acknowledged his ruling means the Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services "immediately loses jurisdiction" over the teens, and puts them in the custody of the Department of Corrections, which "does not have a facility for housing female juveniles."

Under federal law, DOC will need to arrange for Perez and McDonald to have no contact with adult inmates, either essentially keeping them in solitary confinement in Delaware jails until they turn 18 or sending them to out-of-state facilities on a contract basis.

Stokes's ruling acknowledges that neither option is ideal, and he also notes that Perez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico brought to the U.S. as a child, faces an increased risk of deportation if convicted as an adult.

But, Stokes said, he is unwilling to send their cases to Family Court in part because they could be released on probation within a few years if sentenced to incarceration there.

In the rulings for both girls, he wrote, "the time for her rehabilitation is beyond the purview of the Family Court."

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