Trinity Bostic (Left to right: Hendersonville Police Department; Obituary; GoFundMe).
A teenage boy accused of killing a teenage girl earlier this summer will be tried as an adult, a Tennessee judge ruled this week.
Fernando Perales Mejia, 17, stands accused of murder in the first degree for the late June slaying of 17-year-old Trinity Lei Bostic.
At the time of his arrest, the defendant’s name was not released by law enforcement. In mid-July, a police affidavit revealed additional details — including Mejia’s name. Around the same time, prosecutors telegraphed their intent to try the defendant as an adult.
Now, after a hearing held on Monday, Sumner County District Attorney General Ray Whitley won judicial clearance to do exactly that.
On the evening of July 29, Trinity was first reported missing as a runaway, according to the Macon County Sheriff’s Office. Interviews with family and friends ensued regarding her potential whereabouts.
“Trinity’s cell phone number was obtained, and immediately we began to trace her location which led to areas outside of Macon County,” Sheriff Joseph Wilburn wrote in a press release in early July. “We notified agencies in Sumner County where we traced her location. Attempts to locate were unsuccessful.”
On July 3, Trinity’s body was found by a state Department of Transportation worker picking up trash. The grim discovery was made along the wood line of State Route 386, near the intersection of Vietnam Veterans Boulevard and New Shackle Island Road in Hendersonville, a medium-sized city located roughly 50 miles southeast of Lafayette, the Macon County seat.
At the scene of the crime, near the body, a spent 9 mm shell casing was found along with a live round. The girl had been shot in the face.
On July 5, the human remains were identified as Trinity’s. That same day, Hendersonville Police Sgt. Nicholas Edwards told USA Today the girl’s death inquiry was “essentially a homicide investigation.”
On July 6, Mejia was arrested and charged by the Hendersonville Police Department on the strength of cellphone records and location data, according to an affidavit obtained by the Gallatin News.
Records showed the last number that contacted Trinity’s phone on June 29 was a number associated with Mejia, police allege.
A search warrant for Mejia’s records was then effectuated. As it turns out, the two cellphones came to be in the same place at around 2:30 p.m. on the day the girl went missing — and then traveled the same path until around 10:39 p.m., according to law enforcement.
During those eight-plus hours, license plate readers registered the defendant’s vehicle driving throughout Hendersonville, police allege. The last indication of Trinity being alive occurred around 9:21 p.m. on June 29, according to the affidavit. Records for both phones’ location data put the devices near where the girl’s body was found.
On July 6, police searched Mejia’s home in Westmoreland — some 30 miles northeast of Hendersonville. The results of that search were ultimately damning, law enforcement allege.
Inside the residence, investigators found a loaded 9 mm magazine and a bag containing some of Trinity’s belongings, according to the affidavit. Police identified the parcel as a “go” bag — a sort of tactical and personal collection of items to carry along quickly in case of an emergency. In the defendant’s vehicle, investigators allegedly found a 9 mm handgun loaded with ammunition that aligned with the bullet and casing recovered from the crime scene.
During an ensuing interview, Mejia allegedly could not keep his story straight. He initially denied having seen Trinity in over two years, but later admitted the two met up on June 29 — after he was confronted with the cellphone records.
After the judge’s ruling allowing him to be tried as an adult, Mejia will be transferred to the custody of the sheriff’s office, according to a report by Nashville-based CBS affiliate WTVF.
In comments to WTVF, some of Trinity’s friends surmised she and the alleged killer had previously been in a romantic relationship.
The defendant is slated to be arraigned on Sept. 27, according to Nashville-based Fox affiliate WZTV. His bond is set at $2 million.
The victim, remembered as kind, caring, and energetic in comments on her obituary, hailed from Lafayette. She worked at Walmart when she died, and she loved music and fashion. She often helped her father out at his auto garage, where the two worked on cars together.
“She had a lot of energy,” her friend, Khloe Redfield, 14, told WZTV. “She would always be laughing on the phone, on FaceTime. She had the most amazing laugh you could ever imagine.”
Trinity would have been a senior at Macon County High School this coming school year. The school’s forthcoming graduating class raised just over $15,000 in a now-disabled GoFundMe for her family.
Law&Crime reached out to the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office for additional details on this story but no response was immediately forthcoming at the time of publication.
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