Darwin Bagshaw was a fourteen year old from Utah when he murdered his pregnant girlfriend
According to court documents Darwin Bagshaw learned that his fifteen year old girlfriend Anne Kasprzak and when the young woman suggested that they runaway together
Darwin Bagshaw instead of listening to his girlfriend would instead beat Anne Kasprzak to death with a shovel.
Anne Kasprzak body would be found the next day and Darwin Bagshaw would be arrested soon after
Darwin Bagshaw would be convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years
Darwin Bagshaw Photos
Darwin Bagshaw FAQ
Where is Darwin Bagshaw now
Darwin Bagshaw is currently incarcerated at the Central Utah Correctional Facility
When is Darwin Bagshaw release date
Darwin Bagshaw is serving a life sentence however is eligible for parole in 2027
Darwin Bagshaw Sentencing
Claims by 15-year-old Anne Kasprzak that she was pregnant with his baby are what caused a then-14-year-old boy to beat her to death with a shovel in 2012, an attorney said during a Monday sentencing hearing.
Darwin “Christopher” Bagshaw’s defense attorney, Chris Bown, said his client snapped when Kasprzak, his girlfriend, told him she was pregnant and that they needed to run away together.
“He was confronted with a situation that he did not have the capacity to process in the correct way,” Bown told a judge.
Bagshaw, who is now 18, reacted by hitting the girl multiple times with a shovel that he found near the Jordan River on March 10, 2012, Bown said. Kasprzak’s body was found in the river a day later.
While Bown described the fatal beating as an “impulsive decision” made by a young teen who did not have the brain development to understand the consequences of his actions, Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Peter Leavitt claimed the crime had been planned and that the teen went to great lengths to cover up his actions. He argued that Bagshaw deserved a prison term of 15 years to life.
“He took her life in the most calculated, cold-blooded and brutal way that he could,” Leavitt said.
Ultimately, 3rd District Judge James Blanch did order the 15-year-to-life prison term. It was a mandatory sentence, he said, for the first-degree felony murder charge to which Bagshaw pleaded guilty in February. He called the crime “unspeakably vicious and cruel.”
Before Blanch handed down the sentence, Bagshaw offered a quiet apology to the girl’s family — an apology, Bown said, that he would have preferred to do in private without television cameras and the public watching.
“I’m very sorry for everything that happened,” Bagshaw said. “I want to apologize to Annie’s family.”
Bown said that while he knew the judge’s hands were tied, he thought a five-year-to-life sentence was more appropriate for a young defendant. The defense attorney — who said he was addressing his comments toward lawmakers and the parole board — said it was not fair to tell a 14-year-old that he or she needs to serve a minimum 15-year prison sentence, which is longer than he or she has been alive.
“I hope at some point that somebody sees that the 15-year-to-life system that we have doesn’t fit when we certify juveniles to the adult system,” he said.
Kasprzak had told Bagshaw and several of her friends that she was pregnant, but her stepfather denied that was the case while he testified at a preliminary hearing.
Dennis Kasprzak, the girl’s father, was emotional Monday as he described looking at his daughter’s body after she was found in the river.
“What I saw there, your honor, wasn’t my daughter,” Dennis Kasprzak said. “It was something you would see being hit by a train. … The only identifiable feature of my young daughter, my baby girl, was a little dimple on her chin.”
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