WEST JORDAN — The 14-year-old Sandy boy accused of shooting and killing a young mother in his neighborhood in July appeared to aim at her husband, a member of a rival gang, but missed and struck the woman instead, court documents say.
The boy now faces four felony charges including murder in the July 22 death of Aliani Mejia-Marin, 18. He is being held in a secure youth detention center as he awaits trial.
The teenager, whom the Deseret News has chosen not to name at this time, allegedly said in a police interview that he “committed murder” and that Mejia-Marin’s death was his fault, according to charging documents released to the Deseret News Thursday. Police said the boy “admitted that he saw his friends getting beat up, pulled a handgun and fired it into the air.”
Detectives have said the boy and Mejia-Marin lived on the same street in the Sandy mobile home community.
Attorney Kerri Priano said during a brief hearing Thursday in 3rd District Juvenile Court that the boy’s defense team is sifting through up to 70 video recordings being used as evidence in the case. Priano did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Mejia-Marin’s husband told police after the shooting that he was in a car with his wife when he recognized two boys on foot as members of a rival gang who had assaulted him a week earlier, the charges say. He got out of the car to confront them and hit both teenagers when they threatened him, then saw the 14-year-old boy running at him firing a black handgun, prosecutors allege.
He said he “jumped back into the vehicle, and a shot came through the window” before a bullet struck his wife. She drove a short distance but “began to die” as he performed CPR, the court documents say.
A passerby later told police that the woman at the wheel got out of the car but the man she was with told her to get back in before the gunman fired three times.
“He appeared to be firing at the male who had exited the car earlier, but missed and hit the female driver,” the charges say.
Mejia-Marin was brought to Intermountain Medical Center in Murray where she succumbed to a gunshot wound.
Another neighbor told a detective he heard what he thought were fireworks and looked outside to see three teenage boys walking, with the 14-year-old boy “pointing a gun and waving it around” before firing several rounds in the air.
Names of witnesses in the case are redacted in the charging documents the court provided to the Deseret News, but Luis Martinez said just after the shooting last month “there are no words” to describe his wife’s death.
Martinez said Mejia-Marin had picked him up from work and the couple was returning home to their 4-month-old son when they came across the teenagers.
He said he managed to get out of the car and push the shooter, who fired at the vehicle, fatally striking his wife from behind. Martinez said he had recently stood up to one of the teens for bullying his sisters.
The 14-year-old boy fled after the shooting that happened about 6 p.m. near 200 W. Eastgate Drive (8800 South), but later returned and was arrested without incident, Sandy police said.
The teenager faces charges of murder, a first-degree felony; obstructing justice, a second-degree felony; and two counts of unlawful discharge of a firearm, a third-degree felony.
Police searched his home, bedroom and yard but did not recover the gun, the charges say.
The boy told officers he took the gun home when he went to retrieve his skateboard and couldn’t remember where he tossed it, but said it was possible someone he called had taken it and he had told another person where it was, prosecutors allege.
The boy allegedly can be heard telling someone in the police video that “I know where the gun is. Should I tell them where it is or no?”
The case could be transferred to the adult system if prosecutors argue successfully to do so. If convicted, the boy could be sentenced to prison, but Utah law does not permit youth offenders to face the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
He returns to court Oct. 1.
Contributing: Garna Mejia