Hearing set for teen accused in Utah girl's death


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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah prosecutors want a Colorado teenager accused in the 2012 death of his girlfriend to be tried as an adult.

The 17-year-old boy appeared in a Salt Lake City juvenile courtroom Thursday in a gray sweatshirt with his hands shackled in front of him.

Juvenile Court Judge C. Dane Nolan set a seven-day hearing beginning March 2 to determine if the boy will stand trial and whether he will face charges as an adult.

The teen is charged with murder and obstructing justice. Prosecutor Patricia Cassell said the seriousness and violent nature of the allegation should bring the case out of juvenile court.

Defense attorney Bill Russell declined to comment.

The body of 15-year-old Anne Kasprzak was found in the Jordan River on March 10, 2012.

The suspect was 14 at the time. The Associated Press is not naming him because he is a juvenile.

The teenager had a slight build and shaggy light-brown hair at Thursday's hearing, which his mother listened to by phone. Kasprzak's family attended the hearing but did not take questions from reporters.

The Grand Junction, Colorado, teen was arrested last month following a two-year investigation that included the arrest of two ex-convicts who were later cleared of the crime.

Prosecutors say the teen lived in Utah at the time of Kasprzak's death. Search warrants state she told people she was pregnant and wrote in a journal that her boyfriend didn't seem to want the baby, though her family later told investigators she wasn't pregnant.

Charging documents say investigators found the girl's blood on the suspect's shoes. He told police she'd had a nosebleed and had asked a friend to lie to back up his story, the documents state.

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LINDSAY WHITEHURST

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