Five teens are being charged as adults in the death of a Michigan father.
The five teens who stand accused of murder after allegedly tossing a rock off an overpass, killing a 32-year-old father, had thrown items before, authorities in Michigan said Thursday.
"There’s a continuing behavior," Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell told People. "They’re deliberate, intentional actions that knowingly could hurt people."
The teens all face murder charges in the death of Keith White, who was riding in a van that cops say was struck by a 6-pound rock beneath the overpass on Oct. 18.
According to Pickell, the teens threw more than a dozen rocks that same day, damaging multiple vehicles, before going to a McDonald’s.
Kyle Anger, 17, Alexander Miller, 15, Mark Sekelsky, 16, Mikadyn Payne, 16, and Trevor Gray, 15, will be charged as adults.
Police said at least 20 other rocks were found on the interstate. Four other vehicles were reportedly damaged.
In the days before White's death, Pickell says the teens threw a chair and shopping cart from an overpass onto a highway in neighboring Saginaw County.
"I don't believe that this was a deliberate attempt to take somebody's life. It was a willful and wanton act that resulted in somebody's death," Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said. "These people should have known better. ... Under Michigan law, that is second-degree murder."
White was reportedly 10 minutes from home on his two-hour commute when he was hit.
"Nobody wins," Sheriff Robert Pickell said. "The young people are charged criminally. A young boy lost his father, and all of the families are left grieving."
The teens are also charged with conspiracy and malicious destruction of property.
White’s fiancée, Aimee Cagle, said that she had to tell their 5-year-old son that his daddy was not coming home.
“He was a good man and a good father,” Cagle told Click on Detroit. “For some senseless act, for it to be just a rock, just to take him so soon.”
Cagle has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for White’s funeral.
