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As he stood in front of an emotionally charged courtroom Friday morning, 17-year-old Jonatan Bustos quietly explained why he stabbed his 15-year-old classmate to death more than a year ago, and apologized to the family of the victim.
The explanation came as Bustos pleaded guilty in 3rd District Juvenile Court to second-degree felony manslaughter for the Aug. 30, 2010, West Valley City slaying of 15-year-old Tayler Pankow over a dispute involving an iPod.
Judge Frederic Oddone sentenced the teen to confinement by the Youth Parole Authority, possibly until his 21st birthday. When he is either released at age 21 or paroled before then, Oddone recommended the teen be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to determine his immigration status.
The sentence was of little comfort to Pankow's family, who vocally objected to the teen's case being moved from adult court where he had faced a first-degree felony murder charge and a possible prison term of up to life.
They told the judge they viewed a few years at a juvenile detention facility as a slap on the hand.
"I think it's ridiculous that a child can get away with killing another child," Pankow's mother, Kristina Hamilton told the court before the sentence was handed down.
Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Patricia Cassell said it wasn't an easy decision to move the case, but that the facts merited a manslaughter charge rather than murder.
Bustos told the judge that before the slaying, Pankow had offered to sell him an iPod, which he decided he didn't want and returned. After the then 16-year-old Bustos left school for the day, he said Pankow and a group of friends confronted him about the now-missing iPod, yelling and cursing at him. He said Pankow and a friend pushed him, but he fled from the confrontation. Later in the day, he ran into Pankow and his brother again, and again walked away.
On the day of the stabbing, Pankow again confronted Bustos, who said he and a friend went to a nearby house and hid in the backyard, where Pankow yelled for him to come out.
When he left the house to go home, Bustos said he tried to take the longer route to avoid another confrontation, but as he was crossing the Family Dollar parking lot, Pankow and some friends spotted him and ran toward him, yelling and threatening to beat him up. Bustos said he walked faster.
"I felt someone push me and start hitting me in the back of the head," he said of Pankow.
Bustos said he pulled out a pocket knife to defend himself and stabbed Pankow twice, then ran about two blocks to safety and called 911 to report what he had done and who he was.
Cassell said Pankow was stabbed once in the left side and once through the heart, which caused him to bleed to death in seconds.
The prosecutors recommended Bustos be ordered to a juvenile lock-up facility. But defense attorney Pamela Vickrey pleaded for leniency.
Vickrey said Bustos made a bad decision by carrying a knife, but had previously tried to diffuse the situation and didn't want the fight that Pankow kept trying to provoke. She said Bustos could make amends by speaking to students about the best ways to avoid and handle bullying and the consequences of making the wrong choice.
"If both of these kids had just reached out for help we wouldn't be here," Vickrey said.
Pankow's father, Jack Pankow, told the judge that Bustos was at fault, not his son.
"He pulled a knife and murdered him," the father said. "They're trying to make him out to be a big, bad bully and it's hogwash."
While sentencing Bustos, the judge told the teen he had other options — like calling the police — and shouldn't have carried a weapon and taken the law into his own hands.
"I'm not asking for forgiveness because that's something I can't give myself," Bustos said. "All I can say to you guys is, I'm sorry."
Police have said they never found any evidence that Bustos stole the iPod.
Homicide case moved from adult to juvenile court
Jonatan Bustos was initially charged in adult court under Utah's direct-file statute with stabbing and killing 15-year-old Tayler Pankow, of West Valley City, during a dispute over an iPod.
But prosecutors later determined the crime did not rise to murder, and last month re-filed the case in juvenile court with a lesser count second-degree felony manslaughter.
"It's our ethical and moral responsibility to get it in the proper forum," Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill has said of the case. "It needs to be in the juvenile court."