America's youngest murder convicts freed at last

isaac

August 3, 2015 2:18 PM

Reprieve has come for America's youngest murderers as they have been released from prison.

CVurtis Jones and Catherine during their sentencing

Curtis Jones was only 12-years-old while his sister, Catherine, was 13, when they were tried as adults and convicted of murder in the fatal shooting death of their father's girlfriend on January 6, 1999, reports Huffington Post.

Despite appeals against the sentence on the two minors, they were bundled to the Florida jail but today, they have regained their freedom, Curtis as a 29-year-old and Catherine, 30.

Curtis and his sister were sentenced after pleading guilty to the second-degree murder of 29-year-old Sonya Nicole Speights, who was seeing their father.

The kids also planned to murder their father and a male relative whom they claimed sexually abused them, but later ditched the plan and hid in the woods near their Port St. John home after killing Speights with their father's handgun.

Curtis and Catherine were arrested the following morning.

The then kids had told their father and Speights about the abuse they suffered in the hands of the relative but their father and his girlfriend did not believe them, an act which triggered their murderous tendencies.

During the trial, documents reviewed by the state welfare agencies overlooked signs that the male relative had physically and sexually abused the children while the history of abuse was not used as evidence in the murder trial.

Prosecutors believed then that the children killed Speights out of jealousy, because their father intended to marry her.

Before starting his sentence, Curtis reportedly asked his attorney if he could bring his Nintendo to prison. During 16 years behind bars, he became an ordained minister.

isaac