Release Was on the Table. A St. Joseph County Judge Sent a Convicted Child Killer to Adult Prison Instead.

The St. Joseph County Courthouse in downtown South Bend. Photo: Charles W. Chapman, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Photo: Charles W. Chapman via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Indiana law handed a St. Joseph County judge a menu on Friday morning. For a 19-year-old convicted of murdering and molesting a 6-year-old girl, the options on paper included keeping him in a juvenile facility, moving him to home detention, community corrections or probation, discharging him outright, or sending him to adult prison, according to the Indiana Department of Correction policy that spells out those review hearings.

Judge Jeffrey Sanford chose prison. Anthony Hutchens will serve the rest of his 64-year sentence in an adult Indiana Department of Correction facility, the St. Joseph County Prosecutor's Office announced. That breaks down to 55 years for murder and nine for child molesting, run back to back. The release notes the prison term is technically ordered "as a term of probation" on a sentence that had been suspended.

Sanford said Hutchens had shown no change in his behavior and was not fit to return to the community, WNDU reported. WSBT, which had a camera in the courtroom, reported the judge said he had seen no progress over the last few years and could not keep putting the decision off.

How a 64-year sentence ended up being served in juvenile detention

Hutchens was 14 when the girl was found dead in woods near her family's New Carlisle apartment on March 12, 2021. A judge convicted him of murder and child molesting at a bench trial in January 2023, and he was sentenced that March, at 16, according to the prosecutor's office and WNDU. The court then suspended the entire sentence and placed him in a juvenile facility.

That arrangement is legal under Indiana Code 31-30-4-2, which lets a court suspend the adult sentence of a minor convicted of a felony in criminal court and make successful completion of a juvenile placement a condition of that suspension. When the offender turns 18, the Department of Correction notifies the judge, and a review hearing has to happen before the offender turns 19. Last year, Sanford extended Hutchens' juvenile stay by one year, WNDU reported. Friday was the follow-up.

The girl's family was in the courtroom Friday, and so was Hutchens' mother. WSBT reported the family said it was happy with the ruling but that nothing could take away the loss. WSBT also reported Hutchens could eventually become eligible for parole.

The question Friday's ruling doesn't answer

Sanford got this one right. But a law-and-order reader is entitled to ask why the outcome was ever in suspense. A court found that a 14-year-old murdered and molested a first-grader-aged child, and the state's response for more than three years was a suspended sentence and a scheduled hearing at which discharge was one of the lawful outcomes. Victims' families in Indiana should not have to walk into a courtroom wondering whether a convicted child killer leaves through the front door.

Lawmakers have opened this chapter of the code before; a 2025 House bill proposed changes to the same review-hearing section. Hoosiers deserve a straight answer from the Statehouse about whether murder and child molesting convictions should keep qualifying for a suspended sentence and a possible discharge at 19. Hutchens was 14 on the day of the crime. Under Friday's order, the rest of his time will be spent behind adult prison walls, which is where the facts always pointed.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.