Attorney claims Miami school killing may have been part of suicide pact
Associated Press Posted
August 17 2005, 9:38 AM EDT
MIAMI -- An attorney for a teenager accused of fatally slashing a classmate in a middle school restroom said the killing may have been part of a suicide pact.
Defense attorney Richard Rosenbaum told a judge Tuesday he has evidence that 14-year-old eighth-graders Michael Hernandez and Jaime Gough visited a Web site about suicide, and that Gough told a classmate the day before his death that he once considered killing himself.
Hernandez faces first-degree murder charges for allegedly stabbing Gough more than 40 times in a bathroom at Southwood Middle School on Feb. 3, 2004. Hernandez, now 15, will be tried as an adult.
Rosenbaum has said he plans to pursue an insanity defense when trial begins in January.
He requested prosecutors turn over all the records found on a computer in Gough's bedroom, saying the files could show that Gough ``wanted or acquiesced'' to the stabbing.
``We want to know what was going on in Jaime Gough's head,'' Rosenbaum said. ``If there's nothing in the computer, then the whole thing might be moot. In a case in which a child could be sent to prison for the rest of his life, we need to be sure.''
Assistant State Attorney Carin Kahgan said defensive wounds on Gough's hands show he tried to fend off the attack.
Hernandez told police that he and Gough exchanged computer messages during the weekend before the killing. But investigators only found an instant message conversation regarding a classroom assignment, prosecutors said.
Circuit Judge Henry Leyte-Vidal said he would review the computer files before ruling.
Hernandez was also charged with attempted murder in a failed plot to kill another classmate at the same time in the same restroom the day before Gough was slain.
He faces an automatic life prison sentence if convicted by a jury of first-degree murder.
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