EVERETT — A Snohomish County judge is tasked Tuesday with deciding whether a boy accused of participating in a deadly drug robbery should face murder charges in adult or juvenile court.
The boy was 15 when he and a group of friends were arrested after a fatal shooting outside a shed in south Everett. One of their peers, a 17-year-old boy, reportedly was staying in the shed with a stash of drugs.
The group on Dec. 7 went after him and the stash, and the boy’s mother, Julie Knechtel, 54, came to his defense, according to court papers. She and her son both were shot. Only the son survived.
All five teens from the group were charged with first-degree murder. In Washington, anyone accused of murder who is 16 or older generally gets transferred into adult court.
The four other defendants are charged as adults: All of them were 16 or 17 when the incident occurred.
The other boy turned 16 within three weeks of the killing. He remains charged in juvenile court while authorities sort out how his case should proceed. If he is convicted as an adult, he would face significantly more time behind bars.
The newspaper generally does not name defendants in juvenile court.
The boy reportedly has said that once the robbery turned into a fight, he got scared. He said he was running away when he heard gunshots.
His defense team in May filed a 62-page memo arguing for the juvenile court to retain jurisdiction. The boy has denied being armed that night, his attorneys wrote. They described him as an alleged accomplice.
They say the boy had a chaotic and unstable home life in Lynnwood. “He was the ‘follower’ anxious for peer approval,” the memo says.
The boy has been in court before. In October 2017, he was searched by police after they reportedly found him hiding behind a tree about 2 a.m. They said they found a gun in his possession. His father posted bail, and charges are pending, according to court papers.
Earlier that year, the boy was accused of accidentally shooting a friend in the arm. He pleaded guilty to lesser charges in November and was ordered to be under supervision for a year.
The surviving victim from the fatal shooting in December says the same boy had robbed him for drugs before that night.
The defendants charged as adults are Bryan Rodriguez-Hernandez, Larry Dontese Dorrough, Gladyz Valencia-Anguiano and Mondrell Maurice Robertson.
They all are scheduled for trial in October. Rodriguez-Hernandez is accused of shooting the mother. Dorrough is accused of shooting the son.
Defense attorneys for those four teens have attempted to have their cases moved back into juvenile court. In extensive filings, they argued that the state law bringing them into adult court is flawed. Prosecutors objected, and a judge in June denied the requests, saying she found “no constitutional basis” to support overturning the law.
[Update: The July 31 hearing was moved to the fall.]
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @rikkiking.
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