Kelly Birmingham beat and killed Tasheena Craft in the home of Craft's mother last May 29.
Craft's family, friends and teachers fought for the judge to give Birmingham life without the possibility of parole, arguing that he could be released on parole by the age of 44.
Lake County deputies and Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal police originally believed they were responding to a possible kidnapping when Craft's sister, Shayla Cote, dialed 9-1-1 in the early morning hours of May 29 and told dispatchers Craft had been taken from their mother's home in Arlee.
Shayla had been asleep upstairs with her boyfriend, Chance Crowder, who got up to use the bathroom between 2:30 and 3 a.m.
Diana Cote, their mother, was in the process of moving, and was not at home at the time.
When he looked downstairs, Crowder couldn't believe what he saw - Birmingham, also known as Kelly Stanfield, dragging Craft's naked body toward the front door, according to court documents.
“I kept hitting her and hitting her,” Birmingham allegedly told Crowder, according an affidavit filed by Young.
Birmingham warned Crowder not to tell anyone what he saw, charging documents stated, and - after removing the body from the home - Birmingham returned and told Crowder to go upstairs and keep Shayla Cote from waking up while he cleaned up the bedroom using a bottle of bleach.
“Crowder went upstairs and laid down next to Cote,” the affidavit said. “He heard banging noises coming from downstairs and later heard (Birmingham's) pickup leave.”
Crowder then woke Cote and told her that her sister had been taken.
Cote initially told Crowder he had to be dreaming, but when she couldn't calm him, went downstairs to look for Craft.
When Cote couldn't find her, she called police.
After being arrested about four hours later, Birmingham confessed to murdering Craft, according to Lake County Undersheriff Jay Doyle. Birmingham allegedly told investigators Craft had made a remark about his father, Wayne Stanfield, not being a very good person, and that had set him off.
Wayne Stanfield had been killed in a motorcycle wreck two days before Birmingham murdered Craft. Stanfield had been arrested a year earlier in Ravalli County and charged with attacking his wife and two sons.
Law enforcement located Birmingham at his residence just over the Missoula County line at about 6:45 a.m. on the day of the murder, where they observed a pink bedroom slipper and bottle of bleach in the bed of the green 1982 Volkswagen pickup Crowder had seen outside the house where the murder took place.
An hour later, two CSKT policemen found Craft's body, wrapped in a blanket and with a matching pink slipper on one of her feet, in an area where Birmingham grew up known as Arlee Pines.
“Homicidal violence” was listed as the cause of death on Craft's death certificate, including “probable ligature strangulation,” which means Craft was strangled with a foreign object, such as a cord or rope.
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