An Indiana teenager who authorities said killed a pregnant schoolmate after she waited too long to tell him about her pregnancy to get an abortion has been sentenced to 65 years in prison.
Aaron Trejo was sentenced Tuesday in St. Joseph County Superior Court for the December 2018 killing of 17-year-old Brena Rouhselang. He had pleaded guilty late last year to murder and feticide.
The killing happened after Rouhselang, a cheerleader and junior at Mishawaka High School, told Trejo that she was six months pregnant, authorities said.
Indiana teenager, Aaron Trejo, who authorities said killed a pregnant schoolmate after she waited too long to tell him about her pregnancy to get an abortion has been sentenced to 65 years in prison.
CREDIT: St. Joseph County Prosecutor’s Office
Trejo, then 16 and a member of the school’s football team, was alleged to be the father, and neither of them wanted to have the child, according to court documents.
He confessed in December 2018 to stabbing Rouhselang and wrapping her in a plastic bag, having planned to kill her and the baby for about a week, court documents say.
“I took action. … I took her life,” he said, because by the time she told him about the pregnancy, it was too late for her to have an abortion, according to an affidavit.
Trejo stabbed the girl with a knife because he thought it would kill her quickly, court documents alleged. She also was choked with her scarf, and he put a black plastic bag over her, put her body in a dumpster and threw her phone and the knife in a river, court papers said.
Trejo received 55 years for murder and 10 years, to be served consecutively, for feticide. He was given more than a year of credit — 394 days — for time already served.
He had faced up to 65 years for murder and up to 16 years for feticide.
