A judge sentenced 16-year-old Aiden Fucci to life in prison on Friday for the first-degree murder of 13-year-old cheerleader Tristyn Bailey, his friend and classmate, in a case that drew national attention due to the brutality of the killing and the ages of the victim and perpetrator.
“Heinous, atrocious and cruel,” a crime orchestrated for no other reason than to feel what it’s like to kill someone. This factor alone is why Judge. R. Lee Smith said there could be only one appropriate sentence for Fucci: life in prison.
It wasn’t about greed, retaliation, revenge, rejection or some fit of uncontrollable anger, Smith said in court Friday. “This crime had no motive.”
“It was done for no other reason than to satisfy this defendant’s internal desire to feel what it was like to kill someone,” the judge said. “It was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner without any pretense for moral or legal justification.”
He said his court has seen its share of autopsy photos, but these were particularly difficult. He repeated what has become common knowledge in the case, that Tristyn endured 114 stab wounds, 49 of which were deemed defensive according to the medical examiner.
“She suffered a painful, horrifying death from someone that she trusted,” the judge said.
Fucci had told friends he was going to kill someone and even talked about taking them into the woods, Smith said. He wanted to watch them bleed out.
“There was a heightened level of premeditation in this case,” the judge said.
Deborah Spiwak, Fucci’s grandmother, told the judge on Wednesday that she knew her grandson had to be punished for his actions, but she pleaded, “Please don’t take him out of our lives forever.” “I know Aiden has some potential.”
Fucci was a juvenile, so an automatic life sentence was out of the question. Instead, the teen faced a sentence ranging from 40 years to life in prison. According to Florida law, after Fucci has served 25 years of a life sentence, the judge can consider a lighter sentence. However, 40 years would still be the bare minimum.
