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Day two; The murderer of a St. Johns County cheerleader will learn this week if he’ll spend the rest of his life behind bars.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Aiden Fucci’s sentencing will be streamed gavel-to-gavel on FirstCoastNews.com, the First Coast News app and on our YouTube page.
To read more about who Tristyn Bailey was, click here.
Testimony continues on Wednesday morning in the case of a St. Johns County teenager who murdered his middle school classmate.
Tristyn Bailey was 13-years-old when she was stabbed to death on Mother’s Day in 2021. Her confessed killer, Aiden Fucci, is now 16-years-old and faces life behind bars. The minimum sentence he could receive is 40 years in prison with the possible review of his sentence after 25 years.
Fucci will learn his fate this week. The sentencing hearing is expected to last at least two days and the judge said he wants to issue his sentence Friday.
Sheriff’s officers, crime analysts and a medical examiner testified, with psychologist Dr. Gregory Pritchard being the final witness.
Pritchard’s testimony had been the subject of debate just the day before the sentencing began; Fucci’s attorney, public defender Rosemarie Peoples, filed a motion to ask that Pritchard not be allowed to testify.
Pritchard was not allowed to meet with Fucci before the trial, and Peoples expressed concern that all of the evidence he would mention in his report would reflect prior “bad acts” Fucci had committed, which she believed should be omitted. By Judge R. Lee Smith denied the motion, and Pritchard took the stand.
He compiled a report based on evidence including depositions, police reports, reports from while Fucci has been in jail, videos of interviews with people that knew Fucci, academic records and the infamous Snapchats that Fucci in the back of a police car on his way to questioning.
He was asked to assess Fucci’s age, maturity, intellectual capacity and general mental and emotional health. He deemed that Fucci was not noted to be particularly immature during the crime — the only records regarding this question showed that some people reported that he was “mature for his age.”
Pritchard also touched on Fucci’s home life. There were conflicting reports regarding Fucci’s biological father, with his girlfriend testifying that he had told her his dad abused him, while his brother told authorities their father was “fantastic.” He explained that while in many violent crimes cases, the defendant has a background of poverty or abuse, he did not see this in Fucci’s case, pointing out his “at least” middle class upbringing.
He denied that Fucci has any kind of intellectual disability, explaining that while he was in ESE (Exceptional Student Education), records show he was in this program because of poor academic performance. Fucci was on track to receive a regular high school diploma, as opposed to a special education diploma.
Read more about Pritchard’s testimony here.
Watch the sentencing gavel-to-gavel here:
