Jamie Silvonek, 18, was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment after pleading guilty to the murder of her mother, Cheryl Silvonek 54-year-old in Lehigh County in 2015, when the teenager was 14 years old. years. Co-accused Caleb Barnes of El Paso, Texas, a soldier from Fort Meade, Maryland, was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.
According to the authorities, Barnes stabbed the victim in his car. The woman had threatened to report Barnes, then 21, to the police for having sex with her minor daughter.
Barnes had plotted the murder and urged his boyfriend, in a series of texts, to realize it. The jurors rejected Barnes' argument at the trial that the girl had killed her mother and that he only helped get rid of the body later.
Silvonek's new lawyers argue that his previous defense did not have enough evidence of his background and mental health.
His previous lawyer, John Waldron, defended his performance Tuesday and said he "would have done nothing different". He stated that he summoned three expert witnesses to try her as a teenager, but that once the judge ruled, her options were limited.
