Misc. Cases II

[Lady Cop]

News4Jax
CLAY COUNTY, Fla. -
Jarred Harrell pleaded guilty Friday to murdering 7-year-old Somer Thompson in October 2009.The 26-year-old admitted to kidnapping, molesting and killing the Orange Park girl.

He also pleaded guilty in two other cases, including child molestation of a 3-year-old girl and possession of child pornography, a total of 59 charges.

Harrell was sentenced to life in prison, an agreement prosecutors and defense attorneys came to for Harrell to avoid the death penalty in a trial.

"It is absolutely inconceivable to me and I think to any sane, rational person how you could have committed these acts upon these innocent children," Judge Don Lester said in sentencing Harrell. "With this plea agreement, you are going to die in prison. You will have the rest of your natural life in prison to contemplate the actions committed and the indescribable suffering you have caused to these victims and their families."

Harrell, present in the courtroom for the first time since he was arraigned in 2010, admitted that he confined Somer, sexually assaulted her, lewdly touched her in private areas and strangled her. He admitted that he then put her body in a container and then put the container in a Dumpster.

Diena Thompson, Somer's mother, and other family members and supporters dressed in purple, Somer's favorite color, attended the hearing, something Thompson has done since the man convicted of killing her daughter was arrested.

Somer was kidnapped Oct. 19, 2009, while walking home from school and found dead in a southeast Georgia landfill two days later.

Several relatives made impact statements at the hearing, addressing Harrell directly.

"Once again, I think that you should look at me, the mother of the child that you strangled and raped and threw in the trash, but cowardly as always, you can keep your head buried," Thompson said to Harrell while on the court stand. "Somer was an innocent child. Before you took her life, you took her dignity, her virginity, and then you took her life. After all that, you then treated my child like trash. I don't know why. Only you can answer that question. There is no reason that you could provide me. There is only your own pitiful, sorry excuses."

Thompson said she doesn't think the court's punishment is enough.

"Your punishment absolutely does not fit your crime," she said. "Your admission of guilt made it possible for good people to spare your sorry life, obviously a foreign concept to you."

"This will be the last breath that I waste or use on you," Thompson said before leaving the witness stand. "As with the last breath, I would like to tell this honorable court that it is now time to take out the trash. May God have mercy on your sorry, sorry soul."

Before speaking, Thompson walked to the stand with Somer's twin brother, who also made a brief statement.

"We know you did this. We have evidence. She trusted you, but you had to do what you did, and look where it got you, and now you're going to jail," he said, staring down Harrell.

Other relatives of Somer's also spoke in court.

"Your selfish actions have forever changed so many lives," Somer's aunt, Dawn Burner, said to Harrell in impact statements. "Knowing you will never be able to hurt anyone else again is the only peace I get from this senseless act you have committed."

"Do you know what you did to my family on Oct. 19, 2009? You took everything," Debbie Bowling, Somer's grandmother, said while crying. "How could you? ... How could you kill a defenseless little 7-year-old girl that only loved everybody?"

She said Somer's twin and other siblings all took the blame for something Harrell did.

"You are no longer a person or a gentle giant. You are a monster, and you should be treated so," she added. "Do you know where they put monsters? They go to big boy prison, and I hope the prison system will show you a real good time like you did Somer."





Somer's twin brother Samuel reads a statement to Harrell as his mother Diena looks on