Earlier this month, Ohio teenagers Jordan Buckley and Jaden Churchheus pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter after admitting to throwing a log off a cliff in a state park that struck and killed a woman down below.
Earlier this month, Ohio teenagers Jordan Buckley and Jaden Churchheus pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter after admitting to throwing a log off a cliff in a state park that struck and killed a woman down below. Now investigators have released videos of the interrogation of the boys that took place one month after the incident.
The two teens tried to pin the blame on each other for the death of photographer and mother of four, Victoria Schafer. After receiving a tip, investigators first questioned 16-year-old Jordan. He blamed his friend, 17-year-old Jaden, who was with him in the park that day.
“Jaden kicked off a branch. Not a branch, it was a log. It was a big log, like, probably this wide. He kicked it and it rolled off the cliff. And it made a loud bang so we ran,” Jordan told authorities.
The officers call Jordan’s mother and put her on speaker. “Were you a part of it, Jordan?” she asked her son.
“I didn’t, like, push it off, but I moved the log with him, I pulled it out. I didn’t know he was going to kick it off though,” Jordan said.
Then Jaden was questioned by the investigators with his mother present. He insisted it was Jordan who sent the log over the cliff. His distraught mother hugged him before he was placed in handcuffs.
At the teens’ sentencing last Friday, the victim’s sister, Kathy Muth, spoke.
“I’m not only still heartbroken over the loss of someone so critically important in my life, I’m angry that the individuals responsible did not immediately come forward, in fact hiding the secret among them for over a month till somebody else turned them in,” Muth said.
The teens were sentenced to three years in a juvenile detention facility.
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