The 14-year-old cousin of murdered 10-year-old Wisconsin girl Lily Peters has been charged with sexually assaulting and strangling her.
Gatekeepers News reports that the victim, Lily, vanished on Sunday evening in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin after an afternoon spent with her aunt Lauri Davis, 45, and her boyfriend John Repetto, 50.
Her father, Alex Peters, 43, reported her missing when she failed to return home around 9pm.
Cops launched a desperate search for her, and found her bicycle in a hiking trail behind her aunt’s house. Her body was found on Monday in a wooded area just off a footpath and less than half a mile from the home she shared with her parents father, mother, Jennifer Eyerly, 38, and her brother Dylan
The boy, who was named in court as CP-B, appeared via a Zoom link from and appeared alongside his attorneys from juvenile detention. He has been charged with first-degree murder.
Dressed in a black sweater, he sat silently as the court heard how “he [the boy] told police his intention was to break and kill the victim from the get go as he left the house and walked down the street with her.”
DA Wade Newell asked for bond to be set at $1 million as he described how the boy “punched the victim in stomach, knocked her to the ground and strangled her to the point of death and then sexually assaulted her.
Despite defence objections, Judge Benjamin Lane agreed to set bond at $1 million and banned him from any contact with minors.
After the boy’s arrest on Tuesday, Chippewa Falls Police Chief Matt Kelm said: “While nothing will bring Lily Peters back or change what happened, we are very grateful to deliver this news to the family and the community.”
“As you can imagine, our first responders are tremendously impacted by anything that impacts one of our children,” Kelm said, “so it is very difficult for them, and the investigators.”
A GoFundMe has been set up for the family which has already garnered over $20,000.
