Unit 1012: The Victims’ Families For The Death Penalty, will show their utmost sympathy and empathy to the parents of 12-year-old Autumn Pasquale, who died on this date, October 20, 2012. We will weep for her and remember her on this date every year.
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2441756/Autumn-Pasquale-Murdered-girls-family-sues-juvenile-killers-parents.html
'If you're going to raise a murderer, you're going to take responsibility:' Murdered girl's family sues juvenile killer's parents
- Justin Robinson, 16, was sentenced this month to 17 years in prison for 12-year-old Autumn Pasquale's death
- Justin lured her to his house in New Jersey just a couple blocks from her home with a promise to exchange bike parts and strangled her to death
- Autumn's father, Anthony Pasquale, has filed a lawsuit against Robinson's parents claiming negligence
- Pasquale claims in the lawsuit that Robinson's parents should have known that their son was troubled and should have sought treatment for him
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UPDATED:
The father of a 12-year-old girl killed by a teenage boy has filed a
lawsuit against the boy's parents for negligence.
Anthony
Pasquale filed the lawsuit against the parents of his daughter Autumn's
murderer, Justin Robinson, in Gloucester County Superior Court on September 23,
according to NJ.com.
'If you're
going to raise a murderer, you're going to take responsibility for it,' said
Kathleen Bonczyk, Anthony Pasquale's attorney for the civil complaint.
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Off to jail:
Justin Robinson, who pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter in the death of
Autumn Pasquale, leaves the courtroom after being sentenced to 17 years in
prison
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Autumn Pasquale was brutally murdered in October in
her hometown of Clayton, New Jersey,
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Autumn Pasquale was brutally murdered in October in
her hometown of Clayton, New Jersey,
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Clues: Justin
Robinson 'liked' the Facebook page set up to find Autumn despite knowing she
was already dead
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Pasquale
claims in the lawsuit that Robinson's parents, Anita Saunders and Alonzo
Robinson, should have known that their son was troubled and should have sought
treatment for him.
Specifically,
the lawsuit claims the parents should have been aware that their son was
'possibly engaging in the theft of bicycles' and had been negatively affected
by witnessing domestic abuse in their home.
Robinson,
16, was sentenced to 17 years in prison this month after pleading guilty to
aggravated manslaughter and admitted to strangling the Clayton Middle School
student to death in October last year.
He
apologized to the family and said, 'This was not supposed to happen,' as he
called the killing a 'mistake.'
The New
Jersey teenager had lured Autumn to his home with an offer to trade bicycle
parts.
Prosecutors
faced difficulties during the trial including a lack of physical evidence to
determine whether he or his brother Dante Robinson, then 17, killed Autumn and
they struggled for provide a motive for the killing.
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Devastated: Autumn's mother and father, Anthony
Pasquale and Jennifer Cornwell, said their daughter was treated 'like a piece
of trash'
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Life cut short:
Authorities found some of Autumn’s belongings in the teens' house including the
white BMX bike she was last seen riding when she left her West High Street home
in the New Jersey town
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Grim discovery:
Gloucester County prosecutors found the body of Autumn Pasquale in a bin just
blocks from her house
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Death wish: Autumn Pasquale's mother Jennifer
Cornwell and father Anthony Pasquale say they wish her murderers could be given
the death penalty
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The
teenager will now spend the next half of his life in prison for the crime,
however he will be eligible for parole after 14½ years.
'I'm sorry.
I never meant for this to happen,' he told Judge Walter Marshall. 'This was all
a big mistake.'
Relatives
of the girl did not see it that way, and some wanted the judge to issue a
tougher sentence than the one agreed to in a plea agreement.
More than
8,500 people signed an online petition at change.org demanding a stiffer term,
but Superior Court Judge Walter Marshall Jr. in Gloucester County accepted a
plea deal agreement and the sentence of 17 years.
During
Robinson's sentencing, family and friends of Autumn — many who were
hoping for a harsher sentence — packed one side of the courtroom.
Autumn's
parents spoke of their pain since losing their daughter.
Addressing
the court, Anthony Pasquale said that Robinson's sentence was not nearly long
enough and called him a 'murderer who does not deserve to live.'
'I believe
the defendant deserves more than 17 years,' said Mr Pasquale, who as a
mail carrier had delivered letters to Robinson's family in Clayton, where the
families of the victim and her killer had deep roots. 'I believe his fate
should be nothing but death.'
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Emotional:
Jennifer Cornwell, mother of slain child Autumn Pasquale, leaves the courtroom
table after making a statement about her daughter during the sentencing of
Justin Robinson
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When he
pleaded guilty, Justin Robinson said he acted alone. During a sentencing
proceeding, neither he, his lawyers, nor prosecutors shed light on a motive for
the killing, or even what happened beyond what was already known: Pasquale went
to his house several blocks from hers after receiving a Facebook offer to trade
bike parts on Oct. 20. When she didn't return home that night, her family, then
the entire community, set off in a frantic search. Two days later, her body was
found in a recycling bin behind the home next to Robinson's.
A break in
the case for investigators came when the boy's mother, Anita Saunders, called
police after seeing something troubling in a Facebook post from one of her
sons.
Speaking
briefly during the sentencing, Saunders told the judge that media accounts of
what happened were incorrect. 'Nobody knows exactly what happened the day of
the accident,' she said.
Robinson's
lawyer, Jean Faulkner, told the judge that the boy had post-traumatic stress
disorder from being physically abused as a young boy and seeing his father
strangle his mother more than once.
'This is a
learned behavior,' Faulkner said.
Pasquale's
family told the judge about Autumn, whom they described as a loving tomboy who
wore mismatched socks and loved to ride her BMX bike.
They talked about how her
disappearance and death touched the town, located 25 miles southeast of
Philadelphia. Her old soccer team, once known as the Clayton Comets, is now
Autumn's Angels; her jersey number, 14, has been retired from the Clayton
Middle School sports teams; a bike path and a park are now named for her.
And they told the judge how members of the family,
including her siblings and young cousins, are in therapy and dealing with
nightmares about her death.
'When I see the blue recycling bins out, I cry to
think Autumn's innocent life was so easily discarded like a piece of trash,'
said the girl's maternal grandmother, Mary Pasquale, who had taught Justin
Robinson in school.
A slide show of pictures of Autumn were projected
onto a screen in the courtroom.
About a dozen family members recalled her as happy,
lively young girl who made others laugh.
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