Facing a possible life sentence in prison, a 14-year-old boy charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of another child pleaded guilty Thursday to reckless manslaughter.
The plea translated into a 10-year sentence for Eric Stoneman, who shot to death 9-year-old Taylor DeMarco at a Battlement Mesa home July 20. Stoneman is to serve four years in juvenile detention and, when he is 18, another six years in state prison.
He will be able to seek parole when he is 22 – two years before his sentence would expire.
“I guess it’s the best deal he could get,” Valorie Stoneman, Eric Stoneman’s mother, said of the plea bargain. “It beats life in prison.”
Bill DeMarco, the father of the slain boy, carried to a court podium an urn filled with his son’s ashes. He had set a framed photo of Taylor DeMarco on the defense table, facing Eric Stoneman.
“He has no remorse,” Bill DeMarco said of Eric Stoneman. “He doesn’t feel sorry for what he did. He can sit over there and shake his head all he wants to. He’s the one who pulled the trigger, and 10 years – what’s 10 years going to do?”
Stoneman pleaded guilty to reckless manslaughter, a Class 4 felony. He also pleaded guilty to felony menacing and resisting arrest. Other charges were dismissed.
“Eric Stoneman has been remorseful about Taylor DeMarco’s death at his hands since the day it happened,” his attorney, public defender Greg Greer, said in an interview.
Security at the courthouse in Glenwood Springs was tight, with extra deputies and a pair of SWAT team members on hand. In a prior hearing, Bill DeMarco had threatened the 14-year-old.
Greer said Eric Stoneman understood DeMarco’s anger and said the boy told him: “I would feel the same way.”
Investigators have said that Stoneman admitted to accidentally shooting Taylor DeMarco. The only witness in the case, a 13-year-old boy, changed his story several times, they said, at first claiming the shooting was intentional and then saying it was an accident. The witness said Stoneman handed the .22-caliber pistol to DeMarco at one point, claimed the safety was on and pointed the gun at his own head and put its barrel in his mouth.
DeMarco was killed by a single shot to the chest. The shooting occurred at the witness’ house, where the boys often played.
Ninth Judicial District Attorney Colleen Truden “direct filed” against Stoneman as a adult. The move prevented the boy’s attorneys from arguing that Stoneman lacked the intelligence or maturity of an adult.
If he had been tried as a juvenile, Stoneman’s maximum sentence would have been seven years in a Division of Youth Services facility.
Valorie Stoneman said she believes the shooting was an accident. Against her orders, she said, her son took the pistol that she owned for protection.
“I kick (myself) every day of the week, every minute of my life for keeping that gun in my house,” she said. “That’s something I have to live with the rest of my life. …
“I will never own another gun. I will never have another gun near me. Ever.”
9News reporter Matt Renoux contributed to this report.
Staff writer Chuck Plunkett can be reached at 303-820-1333 or cplunkett@denverpost.com.
