WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (ABC 4 News) – Kristina Hamilton hasn’t changed her son’s room since he died last year.
“Still to this day I'll come in here just to sleep. To be near him,” said Hamilton.
Hunger High School student Taylor Pankow was stabbed to death in from of a West Valley Family Dollar store three days after his 16th birthday on August, 30th, 2010.
“I'm going to have to live the rest of my life without my son,” said Hamilton.
16-year-old Jonaton Bustos was charged with 1st degree murder and was set to be tried as an adult.
“I don't want him out walking the streets that my family walks on,” said Hamilton.
But now Bustos will be tried as a minor. The charges against him changed from murder to manslaughter. Minors cannot be directly tried for manslaughter in an adult court. This ultimately reduces the possible penalty for Bustos from life in prison to serving time in a juvenile detention facility, at the most, until he’s 21 years old.
“You know, I have to go to my son's grave and I have to apologize to him because he didn't get justice for what happened to him,” said Hamilton breaking down into tears.
District Attorney Sim Gill empathizes with Pankow’s family but says after relentless internal review, this simply isn’t a murder case due to how the stabbing happened.
“The worst thing we can do is try to go forward with something we know we can't prove,” said Gill.
Witnesses say Pankow picked the fight and the defense argues Bustos defended himself albeit with too much force making murder not an option. This explanation still isn’t consolation for a grieving mother.
“What kind of message does that send for him to practically get away with murder. He murdered my son,” said Hamilton.
Bustos defense attorneys believe that he did not mean to kill Pankow and that he is truly remorseful in over what happened. He’ll be before a juvenile court judge for the first time December 9th.
