Family of murdered 12-year-old upset after convicted killer accidentally released from prison
Sep 2, 2019, 8:23 PM | Updated: 8:24 pm
The family of a murdered 12-year-old girl is expressing outrage over her convicted killer accidentally getting released from prison.
Kailey Vijil died four years ago. Her family is calling this accidental release an injustice.
“We cherish every moment that we had with her. We won’t have that moment anymore,” said Madeline Greymountain, a spokesperson for the Vijil family. “The family would be devastated to have any other family go through the last four years of hell.”
Jayden Matthew Sterzer lured Kailey away from her home asking for help to find a lost cat. Three hours later her body was found in a pasture.
Sterzer was 15-years-old at the time so a judge ordered him to be put in a youth detention center until the age of 21 after being convicted of murder and rape. On August 20 he was accused of assaulting a staff member and then was taken to jail.
The issue came when no formal charges were filed after six days of Sterzer being in jail. Therefore the protocol typically is to release the inmate. Sheriff Rosie Rivera said officials never got information on Sterzer.
“When he was booked in, nobody knew who he was,” Rivera said. “He was just booked in and we waited for the charges and there were no charges so he was released.”
The juvenile detention center says it attempted to alert the jail and tried sending it to a fax machine that is no longer in service. Authorities eventually issued another arrest warrant and police arrested Sterzer four hours later.
Read more on ksltv.com.
