The mother of a 10-year-old Donegal Township boy who was stabbed to death this week asked for his name to be remembered.
“Scream our baby’s name! HUNTER WILLIAM SCOTT MEYERS! He’s the one that needs remembered. Our baby is now FOREVER 10!” Meyers wrote on Facebook Friday.
Meyers and other family members could not be reached for comment, but Dorothy Meyers wrote several posts on social media about her son, asking friends to spread his name.
Hunter Meyers was spending the night at 13-year-old James C. Campbell’s house in Donegal Township when police said James stabbed the younger boy multiple times in the head.
Hunter was found dead in a bedroom around 6 a.m. Thursday. He lived nearby, police said.
James is charged as an adult with charges including first degree murder.
Police didn’t release further details about the case on Friday and authorities have declined to name a motive.
Meyers said her son and James were best friends and “cousins,” although unrelated by blood.
“The list of people that watch my children is extremely small, and he had stayed at his grandma’s with his best friend a million times,” she wrote.
Meyers urged friends in several posts not to express hatred toward James or his family.
“This is not an adult, he is a child,” she wrote.
Meyers thanked those who donated to an online fundraiser that brought in more than $16,000 for her family by Friday evening.
“My son was asleep and never had a chance to react or be scared,” she wrote in another post. “That’s what I am clinging to right now.”
Meyers told TribLive news partner WTAE that her son liked playing XBox, riding quads, fishing and spending time with the family’s pets.
Both boys attended Agora Cyber Charter School. A spokesperson said James was about to start eighth grade and Hunter was headed into fifth grade.
“Our hearts go out to the families impacted by this tragic situation, and the Agora Cyber Charter School community extends our deepest sympathies to the victim’s loved ones,” according to a statement. “Although the school year has not started yet, Agora is making professional trauma support available to any students in need of them.”
James is the youngest person to be charged as an adult with homicide and first-degree murder in Westmoreland County in decades.
The attorney tasked with representing James will likely attempt to get the case moved to juvenile court where potential penalties are far less harsh, according to two law experts.
If that does happen, it will ultimately be up to a judge to decide if the case is heard in adult or juvenile court. The burden would fall to the defense to prove James’ case would be better suited for the juvenile system.
“That’s going to be a difficult thing,” said Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at Saint Vincent College in Unity.
There have been children younger than James charged as adults in Pennsylvania with homicide, as well as those older, said David A. Harris, University of Pittsburgh law professor.
“It happens with disturbing frequency,” he said.
Jordan Brown was 11 years old when he was arrested in the 2009 killing of his father’s pregnant fiancée and her unborn child in Lawrence County. He spent most of his childhood in prison before the state Supreme Court overturned his conviction.
Ian Bishop was 14 when he bludgeoned his 18-year-old brother to death in the family’s Hempfield home in 2002. He was paroled in January 2023 after serving 21 years.
Jacob Remaley was 14 on Nov. 30, 2016, when he shot and killed his mother and younger brother in their New Stanton home. He is serving a sentence of 30 years to life.
Two 14-year-old boys and two 15-year-old boys were among a group of seven people accused in a July 3, 2022, fatal shooting in New Kensington. One case was moved to juvenile court. The other three juvenile defendants were convicted as adults.
The case against Nigel Thompson, in connection with a February 2023 fatal shooting in Carrick, was moved to juvenile court earlier this year. Thompson was 14 when police said he fatally shot Damonte Hardrick, 17. The juvenile court system only has jurisdiction until a person is 21 years old.
John Burnsworth III was 14 when he fatally shot a 13-year-old boy at a Mt. Pleasant home in 2016. His case was moved to juvenile court where he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and spent time at a Cambria County reform school before being released in 2018 at age 16.
Violent crime arrests involving young people have been on the decline since the mid-1990s, according to a 2022 report from the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2020, there were 930 people 17 and younger arrested on murder charges.
Conviction in Pennsylvania adult court of first- or second-degree homicide results in an automatic sentence of life imprisonment. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2012 found that mandatory life sentences with no opportunity for parole are unconstitutional penalties for juveniles. Nearly 500 so-called ‘juvenile lifers’ in Pennsylvania have been resentenced as of June 30, according to a state report.
For now, James is being held at the Regional Youth Services Center in Hempfield, said director Rich Gordon. He is the only youthful offender in the building’s secure facility. Bond was denied. A preliminary hearing is set for Aug. 9.
James’ court docket indicated he was being represented by the public defender’s office. The head of the office was unavailable Friday afternoon.
Troopers said in court papers that James had blood on his pants and feet, as well as multiple cuts on his right hand. He confessed to the stabbing during an interview with state police, they said. The home is in a rural area just east of Stahlstown, not far from Donegal Lake in the southeastern part of Westmoreland County.
James Garbarino, emeritus professor of psychology at Cornell and Loyola universities, said he has worked on homicide cases involving people James’ age. When a juvenile kills someone, it is typically another juvenile, or sometimes a parent or parental figure, and he said it’s important to consider the child’s background in determining how they might best be rehabilitated.
“Kids often kill people who represent something,” he said. “This kid may not understand what’s going on. It make take us on the outside to illuminate that.”
The type of violence that police said was involved in Meyers’ death — multiple stab wounds — indicates a sustained level of energy, Garbarino said.
“Rage is the most likely thing,” he said.