Julianne Siller's Alleged Killer Should be Tried As Adult: Prosecutor

The Skippack teen accused of killing Spring-Ford Area High School senior Julianne Siller should be prosecuted as an adult, according to prosecutors.

Lawyers for Tristan Stahley, 17, accused of stabbing Siller to death along a Skippack trail in May, requested last month the former Perkiomen Valley High School student be tried on charges of murder and possession of an instrument of crime as a juvenile, not an adult.

According to Stahley’s attorney, Timothy J. Barton, the teen is need of “supervision, care and rehabilitation,” which can be provided in juvenile court, where the emphasis is based on rehabilitation, not punishment.

The Montgomery County District Attorney’s office disagrees for a number of reasons.

“The defendant’s actions caused a significant and lasting impact on this community. The defendant is not amenable to treatment, supervision or rehabilitation and the adult court system provides adequate dispositional alternatives,” Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Abidiwan-Lupo said in a court document, according to The Mercury. “Additionally, the horrific and violent nature of the defendant’s acts, the defendant’s sole culpability in the crime and his significant threat to the safety of the community demonstrates that the public interest can only be served by denying decertification.

“Lastly, Julianne Siller was an innocent seventeen year old child when her life was violently stripped away from her and from her family. The impact of that loss, directly caused by the defendant, will endure forever,” Abidiwan-Lupo said.

In September, Stahley pleaded not guilty the charges against him, after police say he stabbed Siller multiple times in the throat with an orange-handled EMT knife before dragging her body into a wooded area off of the Skippack trail.

After the alleged stabbing, police say that Stahley returned home and threatened to kill himself after confessing his crime to his mother; a struggle ensued while Stahley’s father tried to stop his son from killing himself, and the Pennsylvania State Police responded the domestic incident.

Stahley then confessed to the murder, police say, and took the troopers to Siller’s body.

Stahley has been held in prison without bail since Siller’s death.