17-Year-Old Facers Trial For Slaying

17-year-old faces trial for slaying

By AMY SMITH
NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Over defense arguments that Steven Stamper Is charged with a murder he did not intend to commit, the 17-year-old defendant Wednesday was ordered to stand trial in Washtenaw County Circuit Court for the slaying of a 13-year-old girl.

The 6-foot-4 Stamper looked downcast as 14th District Judge Thomas Shea ruled that there was probable cause to believe the Ypsilanti Township teen-ager intended to kill Mary Anne Hulbert, who was shot to death last Dec. 30 in a rural area of Superior Township.

Stamper's long and convoluted path to Circuit court actually began six months ago in Juvenile Court, before the young and co-defendant Chris Machacek each turned 17. The pair was then bound over to Circuit Court, where Stamper demanded a preliminary examination in the district court.

In Wednesday’s exam, six prosecution witnesses held to the same accounts testified to in Juvenile Court. It came as little surprise when Shea bound Stamper over to the higher court, where he will be arraigned July 21 on a charge of open murder. 

Machacek is charged with the same offense and, though both suspects have accused each other of firing the murder weapon, police and prosecutors believe Machacek had a motive for killing Hulbert. The victim had accused him of being the father of the child she mistakenly believed she was carrying.

Stamper repeatedly told county sheriff's investigators in a taped statement that he and Machacek had taken Hulbert out to a deserted area “just to scare her” into a miscarriage.

Because of that assertion, defense attorney Norman Fell argued that the charge against his client should be reduced from open murder to assault with intent to do great bodily harm. The only “intent” in the crime, Fell said, was to cause a miscarriage, not to kill.

But assistant prosecutor Elizabeth Pollard pointed to Stamper’s own taped admission to detectives Michael Fulcher and Lloyd Stamper that he was guilty of “helping to murder.” 

Defense attorneys for both teenagers will likely argue for their clients to have separate trials, one of several pre-trial motions that will need to be determined by Circuit Judge Henry Conlin.