16-year-old gets a life sentence for fatally beating adoptive mother

Associated Press

CLOVIS, N.M. — A 16-year-old boy was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for beating his adoptive mother to death with a baseball bat while six young children watched.

Arnell VanDuyne had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the July 5 slaying of Norma Young, 41.

"I can’t give you all Norma back and I know that," VanDuyne told family members at his sentencing hearing Tuesday. "I’m sorry for what I done. I can’t take it back."

Norma Young and her husband, Paul, had taken in VanDuyne as a foster child more than three years ago and later adopted him.

"To kill someone who takes you in as she had done herself is inhumane and unjustified," Paul Young told state District Judge Robert Brack.

VanDuyne allegedly told police he was angry at his mother because she told him to clean out his dresser and then checked and told him he wasn’t doing it right, district attorney Randall Harris said.

VanDuyne said he tied Norma Young’s hands behind her back, tried to rape her and then beat her with the bat, Harris said. Norma Young, who offered day care in her home, had been playing with young children.

A day later, police arrested VanDuyne in Texas after a chase. He had fled in the Youngs’ car and taken her credit cards.

Defense attorney James Wilson had argued the judge should show some mercy in sentencing the teen-ager because of his difficult early life. Wilson said VanDuyne’s natural mother locked him in a closet in a crack house for several days when he was a toddler.

VanDuyne also pleaded guilty to false imprisonment, attempted criminal sexual penetration, attempted armed robbery, child abuse, evidence tampering, car theft, larceny and credit card theft, Harris said.

Three weeks before her slaying, Norma Young had persuaded authorities to release the boy from the New Mexico Boy’s School, where he had been held on a probation violation for stealing the Youngs’ car. The teen-ager had been arrested several times for battery, shoplifting and other probation violations.