DEMING, N.M., Dec. 12 -- A 13-year-old New Mexico boy Tuesday faced two years in detention for killing a classmate at his middle school, the maximum state penalty for juveniles.
Judge V. Lee Vesely sentenced Victor Cordova after a three-hour hearing Monday in which a prosecutor said he would seek one-year extensions that would keep the teenager in state custody until he reaches the age of 21, if a judge agrees.
Cordova fatally shot Araceli Tena, 13, in the head Nov. 19, 1999 at the Deming Middle School and pointed the .22 caliber pistol at police and school officials before he surrendered. He pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder and 11 counts of aggravated assault in April.
Cordova told the judge he was sorry for Tena's death but as he was led from the courtroom Tena's mother shouted, "Asesino," which means murderer in Spanish.
"It's too little," the victim's aunt, Leticia Alamanza, said after the hearing. "What he did wasn't so little. His whole life he should be in jail."
State juvenile authorities said Cordova, who was 12 at the time of the slaying, might be the youngest child ever charged with murder in New Mexico.
Cordova is a U.S. citizen and attended school in Deming but he lives in Palomas, Mexico, just across the border. His father, a mechanic in Palomas, did not attend the hearing because lawyers said he feared inflaming the Tena family.
In the hearing, Cordova's attorney said the boy took the gun to school the day of the shooting to kill himself and accidentally shot the girl when he was bumped. He said Cordova had been depressed since the death of his mother from cancer in early 1999.
