BALTIMORE, April 30 (UPI) — A Baltimore woman has admitted helping her 13-year-old son hide the body of a girl he had shot under trash bags in an alley.
Veronica Alford, 49, is scheduled to be sentenced in June, The Baltimore Sun reported. She pleaded guilty Monday to being an accessory after the fact to the killing of Monae Turnage, 13.
Alford’s son, who shot Monae in March 2012, admitted the juvenile equivalent of manslaughter last year. He is being held indefinitely in a treatment facility, while a boy who helped him hide the body is living with a relative in the suburbs and is under court supervision.
Investigators said Monae was still alive when she was put in the alley. Her mother said she cannot understand why Alford acted as she did.
“We could have saved a child’s life,” Edith Turnage said. “I don’t think anyone can imagine the loss.”
Alford also admitted she hid the gun used in the shooting in her boyfriend’s car. The boyfriend, Baltimore police officer John Ward, was not prosecuted.
Martinez Armstrong, a half-brother of one of the boys, is scheduled to go on trial this week on a reckless endangerment charge. He allegedly owned the rifle used to shoot Monae.
Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
