MIAMI - The Miami-Dade School Board on Wednesday approved a $1.7 million settlement for the family of a teenager fatally slashed by a classmate in a middle school restroom.

Jaime Gough, 14, died Feb. 3, 2004 at Southwood Middle School of more than 40 stab and slash wounds to his neck, face and hands.

Michael Hernandez, now 15, had blood on his clothes and a bloody knife in his backpack when he was arrested in class after the school was locked down when the body was found.

Hernandez faces a mandatory life prison sentence if convicted as an adult of the first- degree murder.

Gough's parents sued the Miami-Dade school district for wrongful death. The family will immediately receive $700,000, the board agreed Wednesday, but the state Legislature must pass a special claims bill before the district can release the $1 million.

Meanwhile, an attorney for Hernandez said the killing may have been part of a suicide pact.

Defense attorney Richard Rosenbaum told a judge Tuesday he has evidence that the eighth-graders visited a Web site about suicide, and that Gough told a classmate the day before his death that he once considered killing himself.

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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