Fifteen-year-old Anne Kasprzak's journals indicate a possible motive for her 2012 murder: She had told her boyfriend she was pregnant and the then-14-year-old boy did not want the baby, according to search warrant affidavits obtained Wednesday by The Tribune.
The boy, now 17, made his first appearance in 3rd District Juvenile Court on Wednesday morning to hear the charges against him: first-degree felony murder and second-degree felony obstruction of justice.
Judge Dane Nolan ordered an adult certification report and psychological evaluation for the boy, in response to a motion by prosecutors to have the case moved to adult court.
The boy will appear in court again on Nov. 20, at which time a preliminary hearing could be set.
He had waived extradition from Colorado and been returned to Utah, where prosecutors say they will seek to have him tried as an adult.
Kasprzak was last seen alive on March 10, 2012.
The Draper girls' body, battered beyond recognition — DNA ultimately identified her — was found in the Jordan River the next day.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill and Draper police have declined to comment on a motive, though a search warrant that had been served in June tells the story of a girl who thought she was pregnant with her boyfriend's baby.
In an interview with police, Kasprzak's stepfather James Bratcher said he learned that Kasprzak was telling family and friends she was pregnant with the boy's baby.
Her family immediately made the girl take a pregnancy test, which came back negative.
However, Bratcher pointed out to the police that Kasprzak's day planner had a notation on March 1, 2012 that said the boyfriend "finds out."
Bratcher clarified that meant Kasprzak had told the boy that she was pregnant with his baby.
Kasprzak's journal, too, talks about how she believed the boy "did not want the baby that she told him she was carrying," according to the search warrant.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill and Draper police have declined to comment on a motive. Bratcher, in an interview Wednesday, also said that he does not know whether an unfounded pregnancy rumor was the reason his daughter died.
"I have no idea [what the motive was]," Bratcher said. "I don't know if that's something we'll ever know."
Kasprzak and the boy hung out, but were not going on dates, Bratcher said. As soon as her parents found out that Kasprzak may have been having sex, they moved Kasprzak to another school. Bratcher confirmed that his daughter was not pregnant.
The Salt Lake Tribune generally does not name juvenile defendants unless they have been certified to stand trial as an adult. Gill noted that his staff was preparing to argue the certification motion in juvenile court in the near future. "It's a very serious allegation," he added.
"That is the direction that the DA wishes to go [and] I agree with it," Bratcher said Wednesday. "I think it was very much an adult crime so [it] requires an adult court system."
A probable cause statement filed in 3rd District Juvenile Court lays out some of the evidence against the teen.
It says Kasprzak's phone records show numerous calls to and from the defendant between 7 and 8:30 on the night of her disappearance. After 8:30 p.m., he never called Kasprzak again, according to the statement.
Police spoke to the defendant a few days after Kasprzak's body was found and asked for the shoes he was wearing. He told officers that Kasprzak had a bloody nose two weeks before at the home of one of his friends and that some of the blood dropped onto a shoelace, the probable cause statement says.
During an interview with officers, the friend at first said Kasprzak had a bloody nose at his house, the statement says. But after officers found a text on the friend's phone from the defendant asking him to tell police the bloody nose story, the friend admitted he had lied, the statement says.
The friend also said that the defendant told him he had been at the Jordan River that night but not to tell anyone and also instructed him to erase the messages on his phone, according to the statement.
"The defendant's shoes were tested and human blood was located in multiple areas on both shoes," the statement says. "Further testing on the human blood on both shoes yielded a DNA profile which matches the DNA profile of Anne Kasprzak."
mmcfall@sltrib.com Twitter: @mikeypanda
