Boy gets 26 years for murdering playmate

[Janice]

EPHRATA, Washington (AP) -- A boy convicted as an adult of stabbing a playmate to death when he was 12 years old was sentenced Monday to the maximum 26 years in prison.

A jury convicted Evan Savoie, now 15, of first-degree murder for the 2003 stabbing death of 13-year-old Craig Sorger, who was developmentally disabled.

Savoie's attorneys have said they will appeal the verdict.

Savoie has repeatedly proclaimed he is innocent. He said Craig fell from a tree while they were playing and that he left him injured -- without a pulse -- on a trail but didn't kill him.

The prosecution said the victim had been beaten and had 34 stab wounds.

Prosecutors alleged Savoie had planned the killing. They told jurors he had blood on his clothes, access to knives, and lied to investigators, at one point deliberately leading searchers away from Sorger's body but later admitting that.

Savoie showed no reaction as the sentence was read, but he smiled when he was led from the courtroom in handcuffs.

"Somebody is going to have to figure out how a 12-year-old can be so violent so young," Grant County Superior Court Judge Ken Jorgensen said as he imposed the maximum sentence.

The Sorger family had pushed for the maximum sentence.

"In your worst nightmare, you never believe this could happen to you," the victim's mother, Lisa Sorger, wrote in a letter read to the court.

The key to the prosecution's case was the testimony of Jake Eakin, another playmate who pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder by complicity. He is serving 14 years in prison.

Eakin led investigators to the murder weapon and identified Savoie as the killer. On the witness stand, he described the brief attack in wrenching detail, saying Sorger repeatedly cried out: "Why are you doing this to me?"

[Stephanie]

I hope that Evan gets the help that he truly needs BEFORE he is ever let out of prison again.