A Connecticut teenager charged with fatally stabbing a classmate in their high school hallway on prom day in 2014 has reached a plea deal to serve 25 years in prison.
Eighteen-year-old Christopher Plaskon pleaded no contest to charges filed in the fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Maren Sanchez in the hallway of Jonathan Law High School in Milford in April 2014.
Sanchez's family and friends wore purple, her favorite color, to court on Monday.
Plaskon previously pleaded not guilty to murder and the judge accepted the state's recommendation on Monday for Plaskon to go to prison for 25 years.
“Based on all the given circumstances in this case, including the defendant’s age and the brutality of the crime, I think we arrived at the best result possible," State's Attorney Kevin Lawlor said.
The judge previously said a trial would be scheduled if a plea agreement wasn't reached by the deadline.
Plaskon's family and friends told police Plaskon was upset Sanchez turned down his prom invitation, but Plaskon's defense attorney, Ed Gavin, rejected that.
“It wasn’t a situation where he had asked her to the prom the day before and she said no and he was devastated and he lashed out at her. He was suffering from psychosis at that point." Gavin said.
A prosecutor maintains that several witnesses said Plaskon asked Sanchez to prom and she declined.
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Plaslon has been at the Manson Youth Institute in Cheshire for two years and will be sentenced on June 6.
According to state law, he would be eligible for parole after serving 60 percent of his sentence, or 13 years, because he was a juvenile at the time of the murder.
