Teen home invasion suspect to be tried as an adult

He faces charges in East Brandywine closet case

WEST CHESTER » The Delaware County youth who authorities say attacked an elderly East Brandywine woman and locked her in a closet in her home will be tried as an adult, a Chester County Common Pleas judge has ruled.

At the conclusion of a six-hour long hearing Friday on the prosecution’s motion to transfer the youth’s case from Juvenile Court to Adult Court, Judge John Hall ruled that the 17-year-old would not be amenable to treatment in the juvenile system, where the court would have only about three years to supervise him until he was automatically discharged when he turned 21.

Hall essentially agreed with the prosecution’s content that the community interest would be best

served by having the youth’s case handled in adult court. He ordered the defendant continue to be held at the Chester County Youth Center until a bail hearing next week. Then, if he cannot post bail, he would be transferred to the nearby Chester County Prison to await trial.

Hall said he would issue a written decision soon.

The youth, whose initials are K.F., was arrested in February and charged with the attack on the woman, a 72-year-old who lived alone in a secluded area of the township. He had been a client at the Devereux Foundation facility in Wallace a few miles from the woman’s house, and had walked away from there the day of the attack.

Authorities say the youth attacked the woman on Feb. 22 after breaking into her house and trying to find items that would help him

with his plan to go “on the run.” As she was coming in the house, he grabbed her from behind, put a cloth bag over her head, choked her to the point of unconsciousness, then bound her hands and feet with tape.

He put her in a closet under a staircase, and locked the door so that it could not be opened from the inside. She was found by a relative four days later, bruised, dehydrated, and malnourished. “You’ll be with Jesus soon,” the youth allegedly told her during the attack.

He is charged with attempted homicide, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, strangulation, and related offenses. If convicted, he would face the possibility of being incarcerated at a state prison.

During the hearing, the youth sat impassively beside his attorney. He said little and did not testify. Family members sat behind him in the audience while on the opposite side of Hall’s courtroom were members of the victim’s family and other supporters.

Hall heard some testimony about the youth’s past. A native of Thailand, he was found abandoned in a city park when he was 3 years old, and taken to an orphanage, where he was subjected to physical abuse and neglect. he adopted by an American Family, and was raised in Media. From a young age, he experienced emotional difficulties, and had been in and out of therapy since he was 10

The hearing Friday featured the testimony of two psychologists who had differing opinions on whether the youth could be rehabilitated within the juvenile probation system. Bruce Mapes of Exton, who interviewed the youth in March on behalf o the county Juvenile Probation Office, said that his treatment needs were such that he would need two to three years of intensive therapy and “a long tail” of court supervision, while Allen R. Coleman of Phoenixville, who was hired by the defense, said he believed that any punishment that would come with a conviction in adult court would hinder the youth’s healthy re-entry into the community.

The youth had been placed in the juvenile system earlier, for two burglaries in 2016 in Delaware County. He absconded from supervision in November, and was placed at Devereux in December, where he was living when the attack occurred.

Mapes said that during his interview with the youth that he expressed little, if any, true remorse for the attack, which he admitted to,

and when asked if he showed any concern for his victim, Mapes said he did not. He claimed to have been on the run from Devereux because he was being bullied there, but Mapes said the attack was not random. Instead, he called it a “cold, calculated, premeditated crime.”

Mapes said that the prognosis of the youth being successful in treatment in the juvenile system was “very poor,” and that the youth himself had expressed little interest in treatment.

But Coleman said that he believed that the youth’s earlier psychological therapy had been hampered by misdiagnosis. He said the youth suffered from Post Traumatic Street Disorder, and that he should have been treated for that instead of connection disorders with his family.

Coleman disagreed with Mapes as to whether the youth regretted what he had done, although he noted that his remorse was “attenuated.” In brief, he said that he “felt under threat and that he wasn’t going to be safe at Devereux,” so he ran away. “He thought his best chance at life would be on the run. When he broke into the woman’s home, “he did not intend to harm her,” Coleman said, and locked her in the closet so she could not call police.

The prosecution was led by Assistant District Attorney Christine Abatemarco, while the youth was represented by attorney Michael Raffaele of Media.