The 14-year-old boy in custody for the murder of 13-year-old Tristyn Bailey will be tried as an adult, authorities in Florida announced Thursday.
Action News Jax obtained charging documents showing that Aiden Fucci will be tried as an adult with premeditated first-degree murder. Fucci was arrested on May 10, the day after Bailey was found dead in a wooded area in St. John, where the victim and the suspect both lived. The 13-year-old girl was reported missing on the morning of May 9, and investigators learned through surveillance footage that she was seen with the suspect in the early morning hours of that Sunday.
State Attorney R.J. Larizza said at a news conference Thursday that Fucci stabbed the girl a shocking 114 times.
“There were defensive wounds on this young lady and she was fighting for her life,” Larizza said, according to the report.
Larizza also said that Fucci had been planning to commit a murder.
“He had told friends that he was going to kill someone, and that it was imminent … he talked about that with his friends several times,” Larizza said, adding that investigators did not believe Fucci specifically targeted Bailey, who grew up in the same neighborhood as Fucci, and went to the same school. The state attorney said that Fucci did offer some specifics of his violent plan that appeared to have come to fruition: He said he was intending to take someone into the woods and fatally stab him.
According to the report and statements made at the press conference, none of the people who had been told of Fucci’s plan came forward to police until it was too late.
Fucci will be represented by a public defender.
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