Jailed for murder at 12, man freed after 16 years

A Florida man who was convicted of committing murder at the age of 12 after being tried as an adult left prison on Tuesday morning after serving almost 16 years behind bars.

Curtis Jones (29) completed his sentence at the medium security South Bay Correctional Institution in South Florida, according to records in the state Department of Corrections.

Jones was convicted in 1999 of second-degree murder in Brevard County and sentenced to 18 years in the shooting of his father's girlfriend, Sonya Speight.

He and his older sister, Catherine, who also was convicted, claimed they had been sexually abused by a male relative in the house. But they were not believed even after child welfare investigators found evidence of abuse, the local Florida Today newspaper reported.

The two children intended to also kill their father and the male relative but panicked.

The newspaper said Jones became the nation’s youngest convicted murderer when he and Catherine entered guilty pleas in a deal to spare them potential life sentences.

Catherine Jones (30) is set to be released on Saturday from the female annex of Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala, according to state prison records.

She was convicted of murder at the age of 13.

Jones' lawyer, Alan Landman of Melbourne, did not immediately return a call for comment. He previously told the local Florida Today newspaper that neither he nor Curtis Jones would make a statement.

However, in a letter written to Florida Today earlier this year, Catherine Jones outlined her fears, saying she would leave prison “as clueless as I was at 13”.

“After spending all of my teenage years and most of my young adulthood behind bars, I’m being released into a foreign society so different from what I left behind,” she wrote.

“Of course there are fears, mainly because there’s so much I must learn to function like a normal person: how to drive, fill out job applications, text, dress for a job interview, build my credit, obtain life, dental, medical insurance. I’m completely clueless.

“The idea of being 30 and completely dependent on others to teach me how to do these basic things isn’t appealing. I’ll leave prison just as clueless as I was at 13.”

Agencies