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Teen gets 10 years for killing mom

At 14, he stabbed her rather than let her beat him for a bad report card. Evidence of abuse leads to reduction of a first-degree murder charge.

MIAMI - An abused teenager who initially faced a life sentence for fatally stabbing his mother in the heart when he was 14 was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in state custody under a plea agreement.

Alexander Bedford, 18, confessed to killing his mother after she ordered him to get an extension cord so she could whip him over a bad report card. The defense maintained the boy had been physically and emotionally abused for years and that a teacher's suspicion of child abuse had not been followed up.

Juanita Bedford, 37, "punished him too harshly and perhaps even criminally in the hopes of making him a better person," Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Mary Barzee said. But the expected beating "did not justify him stabbing her to death."

Alexander Bedford passed a note in his middle school classroom asking "how do you kill somebody" hours before attacking his mother in their apartment in 2001. He made up a story about an intruder killing the teacher's aide for disabled students when she answered the door.

He later said he attacked her with a 7-inch kitchen knife after she threatened to whip him for getting bad grades.

Defense attorney Roderick Vereen said that with credit for time served and no disciplinary problems in prison, Bedford could be released in about 31/2 years.

He also must serve 10 years' probation, get psychological counseling and take prescribed medications. The judge noted he is being treated for depression and was sexually assaulted while in custody. She also said Bedford has gone from a child with D's and F's to a 3.54 grade point average in 12th-grade classes.

The boy lived with his mother and her girlfriend. The girlfriend estimated some of the beatings lasted 20 minutes and asked the woman to stop but did not report the whippings, Vereen said. The girlfriend also dressed the boy in women's clothing and videotaped him dancing while his mother was at work.

The victim's sister, Gloria Murray, said her nephew begged her several times to let him move in but she refused without realizing the boy was being abused.

Bedford removed his glasses and wiped tears from his eyes after his relatives spoke.

"I loved my mother so much," he said. "I have been through a lot of pressure, a lot of pain."

Prosecutors conceded in April when they reduced the charge from first- to second-degree murder that the mother's "character and parenting skills would become a centerpiece of the trial," and they wanted to avoid that.

[Last modified June 29, 2005, 01:17:03]