It was always known that Jayden Sterzer would one day go to the adult prison for raping and murdering his 12-year-old neighbor.
A 3rd District judge on Monday sentenced Sterzer to spend a 15-year-to-life sentence at the Utah State Prison, a decision that came after authorities say Sterzer assaulted a staff member while he was in a juvenile detention center.
Sterzer, now 19, admitted last December that he killed Kailey Vijil in 2015, after he knocked on her door and asked her help to find a lost cat. The then-15-year-old boy brought Kailey to an overgrown pasture about a half-mile from her family’s West Valley City home, where he sexually assaulted then strangled her.