Hearing set for juvenile in assault

Devereux escapee from Delco could be ruled an adult

WEST CHESTER » A Common Pleas Court judge will be asked Friday whether the Delaware County teenager who is accused of attacking an elderly East Brandywine woman and locking her in a closet should have his case handled in adult court here, or remain in the juvenile system.

Judge John Hall, who oversees the county’s Juvenile Court, will convene the unusual transfer hearing in a proceeding that is expected to last most of the day. The youth, who walked away from the Devereux facility in Wallace Township. He is a resident of Media and native of Thailand, wand as arrested in February after police identified him as the suspect in the attack, which left the 72-yearold woman in serious condition.

He is charged with attempted homicide, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, strangulation, and related offenses. The juvenile, whose name is being withheld by the Daily Local News, as is the identity of his alleged victim, has been held in the Chester County Youth Center since his arrest.

The move to transfer the youth’s case to adult court is being contested by his attorney.

Few cases of juveniles charged with crimes are transferred to adult court in the county, according to observers, and those that are seldom are contested by the defense. If transferred, the teenager would be tried under the rules of criminal court, rather than adjudicated as a delinquent. He would face the possibility of being sentenced to prison, rather than finding himself assigned to a juvenile rehabilitation facility or home detention.

Hall will be asked by the prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorney Christine Abatemarco, and the youth’s attorney, Michael Raffaele of Media, to determine whether he fits certain criteria governing juvenile transfers. In general, they seek to ascertain whether the individual circumstances of his case would be better handled in the juvenile system, or whether the crime deserves to be addressed in criminal court.

Factors involved include the impact of the offense on the victim and the community; the threat to public safety; the circumstances of the offense; and whether the juvenile is amenable to treatment, supervision or rehabilitation. Hall can take into account the youth’s age, mental capacity, his maturity, the degree of criminal sophistication exhibited in the case, any previous records, and whether the youth an be rehabilitated prior to the expiration of the juvenile court jurisdiction at age 21.

Hall will hear testimony from various sources about the crime itself and its impact on the community, as well as the expert testi-

mony from Bruce Mapes, the prominent county child psychologist, as well as a defense expert.

According to county Juvenile Probation officials, the youth was adjudicated

delinquent on two burglary counts in Delaware County on Oct. 18. He was ordered placed in a home residential program supervised by Glen Mills School and placed on the Delaware County GPS system, but fled from those programs Oct. 30.

He was taken into custody by Delaware State Police after he was spotted walking down I-95 near the Delaware-Maryland border. Police said he was found with drug paraphernalia in his possession, as well as items from a previous burglary.

He underwent six evaluations while at the Delaware County Juvenile Detention Center in Lima, and was ordered to a residential treatment center. On Dec. 12, he was sent to Devereux’s campus off Route 282 in Wallace.

It was there that he was living when the attack on the woman occurred.

The woman was bound and gagged and locked in a closet for four days in her rural home on Creek Road on Feb. 22 when she was returning to the home she lived in alone from work. She was bound and gagged with duct tape, and left in first-floor closet that was locked shut. During the assault, the attacker told her, “You’ll be with Jesus soon,” police have said. She was strangled until she lost consciousness.

The woman was found by a relative who came to her home to check on her four days later.