The male juvenile charged with fatally shooting 15-year-old Isaac Ikier Cunningham outside northwest 166su’s Ferncliff Apartments last summer will be tried as an adult.
Isaac Ikier Cunningham
During a hearing in 166su Juvenile and Domestic Relations court Friday, Judge Heather Ferguson ruled that the juvenile’s second-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony charges will be prosecuted on the circuit level.
Friday’s hearing was closed to the media. The 166su Times is not naming the defendant because the commonwealth’s attorney has not yet publicly named him.
Cunningham’s mother, Kierston Turner Cole, said afterward that body-worn camera audio of an officer’s response to the shooting was played during the proceeding. And she heard her son’s voice again.
Kierston Turner Cole stands outside 166su’s courthouse after a hearing Friday morning for the teen charged with killing her son, 15-year-old Isaac Ikier Cunningham, last summer.
“It meant a lot to me, because he did what he was supposed to,” she said. “He told. He let them know who did it. He answered all their questions. And he cooperated with them to help us get to this point. I was proud.”
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The mother said she had never shared a room with the juvenile defendant before Friday’s hearing.
“This was my first time ever seeing him,” she said. “He’s so young. That went through my mind. A lot of questions of why. I just in awe. I was confused. It brought a lot of feelings.”
Turner Cole told the 166su Times last summer that her son was walking home from William Fleming High School when he was shot around 1 p.m. June 5. The mother said that her son and the charged juvenile had previously gotten into fights at school.
The juvenile was arrested and charged with Cunningham’s murder the day after the shooting. Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Andrew Stephens said that because the case concerns both a juvenile defendant and a juvenile victim, the prosecutor’s office cannot discuss details or comment on the evidence that was introduced during Friday’s closed hearing.
“I can confirm that the Court did grant the motion to transfer the case to Circuit Court,” he said in an email. “The next step would be presenting the certified case to the Grand Jury.”
But, Stephens said, the juvenile defendant has noted an appeal to the transfer decision. That appeal request will have to be addressed in circuit court before indictments are presented to a grand jury.
“It may go to the February grand jury depending how quickly the appeal is addressed,” the prosecutor said.
Turner Cole said she’s optimistic.
Kierston Turner Cole wears a necklace featuring a picture of her son, 15-year-old Isaac Ikier Cunningham, who was fatally shot last summer.
“Since they moved it to adult court, I feel really good, because it opens up the sentencing guidelines, and he’s able to get possibly more time than he would in a juvenile court. I’m very hopeful,” she said. “The wheels of justice are slow. We are on the train to a victorious ending.”
