From Deseret News archives:

Maximum term in OD death

Judge calls defendant 'a significant danger'

Published: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 9:25 a.m. MDT
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WEST JORDAN — Third District Judge Royal Hansen set aside recommendations from both defense attorneys and prosecutors Tuesday — instead imposing the maximum sentence on Macall Aubrey Petersen.

Petersen, 19, earlier admitted injecting her best friend with drugs, causing an overdose, and then hiding the body.

"Your actions show you are a significant danger to the community," the judge said. "The court wants you to know your conduct will not be tolerated today nor at any time in the future."

Petersen was sentenced to a year in jail for class A misdemeanor negligent homicide and zero-to-five years in prison for third-degree felony desecration of a human body. The sentences will run consecutively.

Lawyers for both sides recommended a year in jail, drug treatment and probation, with a suspended prison term. But Hansen was not persuaded and gave the strongest sentence he could, leaving the exact amount of time Petersen spends behind bars to the state parole board.

He also ordered her to take part in prison drug treatment programs and have no contact with her mother, who was described in court as a lifelong drug addict who reportedly did drugs with her daughter.

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Amelia Sorich, 18, died from a too-potent mixture of heroin and cocaine known as a speedball on June 25, 2005, after Petersen injected her and then failed to call for help when Sorich became dangerously ill.

Later, when Sorich died, Petersen and her former boyfriend, Jasen Andrew Calacino, 19, hid the body. Calacino's case is separate from Petersen's and he is due in court June 19 for a disposition hearing.

Kathryn Sorich, Amelia's mother, told the judge her daughter was a talented, good-humored and accomplished young woman who went out of her way to care for others, including Petersen.

"Macall (Petersen) was on the run with her mother for a couple of months, doing drugs, and it was Amelia she called," Kathryn Sorich said.

She said her daughter nursed Macall Petersen back to health and helped her contact her stepfather and turn herself in to police.

Now Amelia Sorich is dead — all because Macall Petersen "was too selfish" and refused to call 911, Kathryn Sorich said.

"She was struggling to breathe," a tearful Sorich cried out, turning to face the shackled Petersen in the courtroom. "The one time she needed someone to take action on her behalf — Where were you? What were you thinking?"

Sorich said she loved her daughter so much that her loss is overwhelming.

"I lie awake nights thinking of ways to kill myself to make it look like an accident so my family won't grieve so much — that's how bad it is," she said.

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Paul Fraughton, Associated Press

Macall Petersen wipes a tear at sentencing. She injected drugs into Sorich, didn't seek aid as Sorich died.

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