SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Dec. 16, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — A Utah 17-year-old has been ruled not competent to stand trial in the rape and strangulation of 12-year-old Kailey Vijil.
Third District Juvenile Court Judge James Michie’s announcement Friday afternoon came after five days of a closed-door competency hearing, meant to evaluate whether the teen is capable of understanding the case against him and participate in his own defense.
The juvenile suspect in the murder of the West Valley City girl, was charged with first-degree rape of a child, in addition to first-degree aggravated homicide in August 2015.
Kailey was killed by the then 15-year-old in the early morning of July 17 after leaving her family’s home in the company of the teen, after he knocked on the door and asked her to help find his lost cat. Hours later, the girl’s partially nude body was found by detectives in a horse pasture about a half-mile from her house. Investigators say she’d been both strangled and sexually assaulted.
Witness statements included in court documents reveal the teen knocked on the Vijil family’s door near 3500 S. 5200 West around midnight and asked Kailey’s 14-year-old sister to help find his lost cat. The 14-year-old told him “no,” so he asked 12-year-old Kailey for help. Police say she agreed and left with the teen boy.
After an unspecified period of time, the 14-year-old told her mother what happened. When Kailey failed to return, her mother contacted police.
The court documents reveal West Valley City detectives found Kailey’s body in a field not far from her home at 2:55 a.m. She was “lying on the ground unresponsive, and not breathing” and “a shirt was wrapped around her neck.”
Police arrested the teen boy within hours of the murder.
The results of an autopsy released by the State Medical Examiner’s Office showed the official cause of death as ligature strangulation.
