A Florida judge on Friday sentenced a 16-year-old boy to life in prison for fatally stabbing a 13-year-old classmate on Mother’s Day 2021.
Aiden Fucci, 16, was 14 when he stabbed Tristyn Bailey at least 114 times in the woods near where the teenagers lived in North Florida, prosecutors said.
“This case is probably the most difficult and shocking that this county, St. Johns County, has ever dealt with,” Judge Lee R. Smith said before ordering Fucci’s life sentence.
Fucci, who pleaded guilty just before his trial began in February, was ineligible for the death penalty due to his young age at the time of the crime. Your case can be reviewed within 25 years under Florida law. His lawyers had requested a 40-year sentence.
Before invoking sentencing, the judge addressed Bailey’s family, noting the huge effect the girl’s murder had on them.
“Let the ‘Bailey Sunday Fundays’ come home to you,” she said, adding that Tristyn wished her family had fun again.
He also said he appreciated that his father, Forrest Bailey, was patient with the legal proceedings.
The judge’s order came after two days of testimony at a sentencing hearing. Emotional impact statements from the victim were read out in court on Wednesday by members of the Bailey family. Her older sister, Alexis Bailey, began her statement by dropping 114 aquamarine stone hearts into a jar, one for each stab wound her sister had received.
Fucci’s grandmother, Deborah Spiwak, also attended the hearing and pleaded for clemency for her grandson on Wednesday.
“Please don’t shut him out of our lives forever…I know Aiden has something good,” she said.
The judge took note of his comment on Friday.
“It took a lot of courage. It wasn’t easy for her. But it showed this court that she had a good, stable home environment,” Smith said of Fucci’s upbringing.
Fucci and her parents each wrote letters to the judge apologizing for their actions and asking for clemency.
Investigators said Fucci told several friends he planned to kill someone, though it’s unclear if Bailey was his target all along.