GERING, Neb. (AP) - A jury has convicted a 17-year-old boy of helping to plot a fatal attack on a Scotts Bluff County jail guard.
The jury took about five hours on Thursday to find Guy Eagle Elk guilty of aiding and abetting assault in the Feb. 14, 2014, strangulation of Amanda Baker. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on May 29.
Prosecutors said Eagle Elk showed then 15-year-old Dylan Cardeilhac how to strangle Baker. Cardeilhac wanted to escape and needed help in overpowering Baker so he could get her keys, prosecutors said.
In his closing arguments Thursday, prosecutor Doug Warner said Eagle Elk, of Lisco, provided step-by-step instructions on how to choke out Baker without killing her, how to hold Baker so she couldn’t scream and how to incapacitate her, according to the Scottsbluff Star-Herald (https://bit.ly/1Ba0QcJ ). Eagle Elk acknowledged telling Cardeilhac to choke Baker for 25 to 30 seconds to disable her, investigators have said. Court affidavits say the attack lasted 2 minutes and 37 seconds.
Defense attorney William Madelung characterized the escape discussions as typical jailhouse talk that included daydreaming and fantasy. Madelung also argued that Eagle Elk didn’t think Cardeilhac would kill Baker.
But it didn’t matter whether Eagle Elk thought Cardeilhac would kill the guard, Warner said.
“He knew that Cardeilhac was going to choke her,” he said.
Cardeilhac, of Torrington, Wyoming, was convicted in November of second-degree murder and sentenced to at least 60 years in prison.
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