Family pushes to keep killer who stabbed teen 67 times in prison

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Family and friends want to keep Shauna Card’s killer behind bars.

Jimmy Bedoya was 16 years old in 1995 when he stabbed his 17-year-old friend in her bathroom with knives and a potato peeler, investigators said.

After three and a half years on the run, Bedoya was tried, convicted and sentenced in 1999 to life without parole, which was legally mandated at the time. However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in “Miller v. Alabama” held that mandatory life sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional.

The ruling forced courts at the local level to re-examine more than 600 cases in the state of Florida, leading to resentencing hearings for juvenile offenders years after their trials were finished.

Bedoya’s resentencing hearing April 25 ended with a judge taking various legal arguments and the testimony of several witnesses under advisement. He promised a decision on Bedoya’s future sometime down the road.

Card’s family told Channel 9’s Field Sutton, that 23 years after she died, the case still consumes them.

"She's still a part of our life, our every moment,” said her stepmother, Beverly Card. "Neither one of us will quit fighting until we die, but we just believe the first decision the judge made (for a life sentence in 1999,) was the correct one."

Card's childhood friend Melanie Morse has started an online petition aimed at convincing the judge to keep Bedoya in prison. The petition has garnered more than 1,000 signatures.

"I loved my friend and I miss my friend and she was taken from me," Morse said. "I need to do my part, and that means reminding people that there is a killer who wants to be out amongst the public after committing such a heinous act."

Even after apologizing and admitting his guilt during the April resentencing, Bedoya has never given even the smallest of hints as to why he murdered Shauna.

“I don’t see why we need to rush around letting him out of prison if we don’t even know what his motive was. How do we know he won’t do it again if we don’t know what the motive is?” Shauna’s father Kent asked Wednesday. “It seems to me that he could feel free to do something else and get away with it. He beat the police, at least for a period of time.”

With their final day in court over, the Cards and Morse said they weren’t sure what else to do to weigh on the judge’s mind aside from sending him the petition.

"I just hope the judge looks at that, that after 23 years, Shauna has not been forgotten,” Card said.

It’s not clear when the judge will make a decision about Bedoya.

The case is on hold right now while both sides write up their final legal arguments.

Cox Media Group