Judge Sets Sentence For Youth Who Planned Relative's Murder

A teen-ager has been sentenced to three to four years in a juvenile rehabilitation center in the murder of a relative he said he had wanted to kill since the sixth grade.

The 16-year-old sentenced yesterday was convicted of first-degree murder as an accomplice who planned the July 28 murder of Angie Mae Reed, 41, at the West Seattle apartments she managed.

(The Times usually does not identify juveniles in court cases, unless they are being tried as adults. Therefore, the specific relationship of the victim and teen-ager has been omitted.)

King County Juvenile Court Judge Anne Ellington sentenced the youth within the standard range of 180 to 224 weeks. The state Department of Juvenile Rehabilitation will decide his specific term. He will be under the jurisdiction of the court until he is 21.

Defense attorney John Austin noted that the youth was not present during the killing.

The judge said the murder was an extraordinarily brutal crime and said that while the youth did not directly participate in it, he took no steps to intervene. Ellington also said the boy had been physically and psychologically abused and had been in several foster homes in California.

Two other youths also were charged with first-degree murder in the killing. Dolphy Blue Jordan, 17, was convicted in adult court of stabbing Reed to death. He was sentenced to nearly 27 years in an adult prison. The third youth will be tried as a juvenile for the same crime.