The idea of sentencing children according to the law is highly controversial and people debate if this is even constitutional or not. Children also commit vicious crimes in a rage of adrenaline and the after effects ruin their entire lives. Here are some of the children who served and are probably serving the longest prison sentences.
#10- Ahmed Mansour Karni
Believe it or not, the Egyptian government has convicted a child to a life long sentence for committing four murders, attempted murder, vandalizing property and threatening police officers. All this done before the age of two! That’s right, he was just a toddler when he killed people. How is that even possible? He was born in 2012 and was among 150 other defendants who were sentenced for life in prison. Maybe he was charged just because he was accompanying the criminals but this is astonishing on the whole.
#9- Eric Smith
Eric Smith was convicted of a second-degree murder in 1994 and was sentenced to maximum term present for juvenile murders which was nine years. While cycling to the summer camp in a summer evening of 1993, Eric lured a four year old Darren Robbie into the woods, undressed him, strangled him to death and then bashed his head with a rock. Eric has been denied parole eight times up till 2016 and his next date for an appeal is in 2018.
See also; 10 Horrific Children Who Were Killers.
#8- John Silva
John was 15 years old when he was convicted of a first degree murder. He kidnapped his friend gagging him, then wrapped him with wires, bandages and elastic so tight that he suffocated to death. Once he died, he dumped the body into a septic tank. If he had been an adult, he would surely receive a death penalty but John received a life sentence without a parole.
#7- Brian Lee Draper
Brian, along with his accomplice Tory Adamant were 16 years old when they broke into their classmate Cassie’s house. After cutting the power, the held her and stabbed her 29 times. They blamed each other for the murder but currently both of them are serving life sentences. It was later revealed that they were inspired by The Scream Franchise and Columbine High School massacre.
#6- Lionel Tate
Lionel was the youngest American citizen to be sentenced for life in prison without the possibility of parole. Back in January 2001, when he was just thirteen, he was convicted of a bursary murder of a six year old girl in Florida. According to him, they were wrestling and he had her head in a headlock when he jammed her into a table and then proceeded to stomp on her which lacerated her liver.
#5- Joshua Phillips
Phillips was convicted for life in prison without parole back in July 1999. Joshua Phillips who was fourteen, hit her eight year old neighbor girl with a ball while playing baseball. He dragged her to his room and strangled her with a phone cord for fifteen minutes, hit her again with a bat and finished the job by stabbing her eleven times. After the girl’s disappearance, a week long search initiated until Joshua’s mother found his water bed leaking and discovered the poor girl’s body inside it. He had killed her and then decided to sleep on her corpse for the rest of his life.
#4- Ashlee Martinson
It is hard to believe that a girl could make to this list for brutally murdering her parents. Martinson had posted a poem on torturing and killing people in the woods and when her parents were found dead at her home, the investigators turned their attention to her as she had fled to Indiana with her boyfriend. She was arrested and confessed that she shot her stepfather and then stabbed her mother more than 30 times. She is currently serving 120 years of maximum in prison.
#3- Eddie Devine
Devine pleaded guilty to carjacking, armed robbery, kidnapping and sexual assault. He was just 13 at the time when him and his friend forced a woman into their car and drove her around while one of them raped and assaulted her with an ice bag. Luckily, the woman was able to escaped while they stopped for gas. Eddie received thirty years of carjacking, thirty years for armed robbery, another thirty for kidnapping and another thirty for sexual assault making his sentence a total of 120 years.
#2- Kenneth Young
When Kenneth was 15 years old, his mother’s drug dealer threatened his family so he decided to take control of the situation by helping the drug dealer to carry out an armed robbery, however, they both were arrested while fleeing a boxed robbery in Georgia. The dealer got one life sentence while Kenneth received three life sentences without the possibility of parole! This was pretty harsh as he was just a kid forced to do something out of the bleak. He is now condemned to die in prison.
#1- Travion Blount
Travion is a fifteen year old who received six life sentences. He along with two other eighteen year old robbed dozens of teenagers at a house party taking their money, phones and marijuana at gunpoint. There were no casualties as no shots were fired but the crimes were taken pretty seriously. The eighteen year old pleaded guilty and took the plea deal but Travion went on trial and was found guilty. He received a 118 years in prison without parole for 24 firearm counts, two felonies with an armed robbery and abduction. It’s like killing him again and again. He would have taken the plea deal but now he can say goodbye to his life.
No one knows what went wrong with the parenting or the minds of these children. Most of them were served with what they seemingly deserved while others just had no luck! Do you think some of these punishments seem pretty harsh?