On Thursday, Santa Cruz prosecutors announced that the arraignment for Adrian Gonzalez, 15, who is accused of the sexual assault and murder of Maddy Middleton, 8, will be delayed until September 21st.
Police say they have evidence that Middleton, who was riding her new scooter around the Tannery Arts Complex where she lived Sunday evening, was lured by Gonzales into his apartment. KRON4 reports that Gonzales then allegedly raped, strangled, and stabbed the child before he carried her to the apartment complex’s parking lot and threw her body into the recycling bin. Gonzales was allegedly found standing near the bin when Middleton’s body was found.
Police have asserted that Gonzales, whose full name is Adrian Jerry Gonzales, will be tried as an adult, thus leaving the possibility of him serving life in prison.
The Los Angeles Times wrote, “Gonzalez’s Instagram account has been taken down. But reporters who reviewed the account before it was removed said it included posts in which he talked about being lonely, anxious and unloved.”
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Gonzales has been charged with “murder and the special circumstances of lying in wait, murder in the course of forcible rape, kidnapping and lewd or lascivious acts with a child, along with separate charges of sexual penetration by a foreign object, two counts of forcible lewd act with a child and forcible rape of a child.”