A former Indiana high school football player received a 65-year prison sentence in the killing of a pregnant cheerleader.
Aaron Romeo Trejo, 18, of Mishawaka, Indiana, who had pleaded guilty late last year to murder and feticide, was sentenced Tuesday. In December 2018, he stabbed 17-year-old Breana Rouhselang in the heart and placed her body in a dumpster. He said in a confession that he committed the crime because Rouhselang took too long to reveal the pregnancy to him and that by then it was too late for a legal abortion. She was six months pregnant with a girl at the time of the murder.
The state of Indiana doesn’t allow abortions after 22 weeks, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Rouhselang was a multisport athlete and cheerleader who also managed the football team.
An autopsy revealed that Rouhselang died of stab wounds and suffered from strangulation before her death, according to the Washington Post. Trejo and Rouhselang had known each other since elementary school.
“I took action,” Trejo said in his confession. “I took her life,” he said, because by the time she told him about her pregnancy, it was too late for an abortion, according to an affidavit.
“Breana MacKenzie Rouhselang, a 17-year-old precious, beautiful, innocent, well-loved young woman and her unborn baby girl, Aurora MacKenzie Rouhselang, tragically passed away early in the morning, on Sunday, December 9, 2018,” said the young woman’s obituary.
Trejo received 55 years for murder and 10 years, to be served consecutively, for feticide. He had originally faced up to 65 years for murder and up to 16 years for feticide.
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