Woman convicted in murder of 18-year-old with cerebral palsy gets lighter term – Tampabay.com (blog)

TAMPA Linda Bonck, a 90-pound Chamberlain High School senior with cerebral palsy, lived near Tampa's Lowry Park. She struggled to walk and talk but was known for being friendly and trusting of strangers until she vanished one day in 1992.

Two teens, David Sheren and Georgia Miller, were sentenced to life in prison for beating and stabbing her to death.

But Miller, now 39, will likely be set free within six years, courtesy of a series of U.S. and Florida Supreme Court decisions that in recent years have found it unconstitutional to give juveniles life sentences.

Miller was resentenced Wednesday to 65 years, after her attorney struck a deal with prosecutors. But with credit for time served, plus gain time she accumulated under rules that were in place in 1992, her release date is pegged for March 2023.

"I don't think it's good enough," said Bonck's father, Phil Golden, who was not present for the hearing, but heard about it afterward. "But I guess my input doesn't really matter. Life should be life. You should take your last breath in a jail cell."

Sheren, Miller's teen boyfriend, still awaits resentencing.

Miller said little as she stood beside Assistant Public Defender Dana Herce, who explained to Hillsborough Circuit Judge Thomas Barber that a sentencing agreement had been negotiated with the State Attorney's Office.

"It is our position that she is entitled to the sentencing guidelines at the time of her offense back in 1992," Herce told the judge. The intent of the agreement is that Miller will have served a total of 29 years in prison, the attorney said.

Once Miller leaves prison, she will serve 15 years of probation.

Bonck, 18, disappeared on Dec. 8, 1992. A search followed.

Weeks later, Sheren, then 16, confessed to police that he and Miller, then 15, had killed her. He led authorities to her body.

The motive for the crime was never clear. Sheren and Miller, who was a runaway, met Bonck a few days earlier.

She had asked Sheren to be her boyfriend, according to news accounts of the 1994 trial.

A few days later, Bonck was in Sheren's house with the couple.

The pair repeatedly changed their stories about who had killed Bonck.

Sheren initially claimed responsibility, but later blamed Miller.

At their 1994 trial, Miller said Sheren did it.

She testified that Sheren told Bonck that Miller wasn't his girlfriend anymore. Distressed, Miller called him into the kitchen, where she said he told her to hit the disabled woman.

"He sat down for a few more minutes and then he just reached over and he hit her," Miller said. She said that when Bonck ran away, Sheren followed her into the bedroom and continued to beat her until she was bloody. She said he then demanded the knife.

Asked why she participated, she testified: "Because I loved him, and I did not want to be separated from him."

In court Wednesday, Herce said it is unclear who committed the actual killing.

The crime happened at a time when the state still allowed parole consideration for convicted murderers after 25 years. But in a 2016 decision, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the state's parole system did not offer individualized consideration of a person's juvenile status at the time of the crime.

The decision drew on the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miller vs. Alabama, which ruled that automatic sentences of life without parole for juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Bonck's father doesn't buy the idea that juveniles are different.

"They had choices to make, and they made the wrong choice," he said.

Contact Dan Sullivan at dsullivan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3386. Follow @TimesDan.

Woman convicted in murder of 18-year-old with cerebral palsy gets lighter term 08/16/17 [Last modified: Wednesday, August 16, 2017 9:21pm] Photo reprints | Article reprints

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Woman convicted in murder of 18-year-old with cerebral palsy gets lighter term - Tampabay.com (blog)