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A man who murdered his girlfriend in Colorado, then brought her body to the Powell police station and confessed to the crime in late 2018 has received a 34-year prison sentence.
Jonathan Akin, 24, …
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A man who murdered his girlfriend in Colorado, then brought her body to the Powell police station and confessed to the crime in late 2018 has received a 34-year prison sentence.
Jonathan Akin, 24, received the sentence on Wednesday in Adams County, Colorado, District Court.
Prosecutors say Akin stabbed Autumn Rivera to death at their Thornton, Colorado, apartment early on the morning of Nov. 25, 2018. Rivera, who had just celebrated her 21st birthday, reportedly told her sister that morning that she and Akin were on their way home from a club and were arguing again about their relationship. She was never heard from again.
Akin later told police and others that he’d been severely intoxicated and didn’t remember what happened next; he told police he blacked out while cutting fruit and awoke to find Rivera dead. However, prosecutors said evidence found at the apartment showed Akin attacked his girlfriend.
“The forensic evidence tells us that Autumn [Rivera] was stabbed nine times in the front and back of her torso, that the attack began on one side of the living room and ended on the other, that Autumn fought and tried to escape,” said Senior Deputy 17th Judicial District Attorney Amy Petri Beard. “That it was the defendant’s brutal actions on the morning of Nov. 25, 2018 that ended Autumn’s life.”
The following day, after attempting to clean up the apartment, Akin loaded Rivera’s body into his car and drove from the Denver area to his mother’s home in Deaver. On the morning of Nov. 27, 2018, he told his mother what he had done and then traveled to the Powell Police Department to turn himself in.
Upon arriving at the station, he told officers they would find his girlfriend’s body in the trunk of his car. Akin was immediately taken into custody by Powell police. He’s remained in jail since then — and Wednesday’s sentence means he’ll stay behind bars for the coming decades.
Akin was originally charged with first-degree murder, but he ultimately agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree murder. Under the terms of the deal, Akin agreed to accept at least 25 years in prison, while prosecutors agreed not to seek more than 40 years, said Sue Lindsay, a spokeswoman for the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office; the maximum sentence for second-degree murder — which involves “knowingly” causing the death of another person, but without premeditation — is eight years in prison.
In imposing a 34-year sentence, Adams County District Court Judge Priscilla Loew ultimately picked a punishment in between the arguments made by the prosecution and defense. Judge Loew reportedly said the evidence at the couple’s apartment showed Rivera suffered a horrific and painful death, as she fought for her life.
As recounted in a news release from the District Attorney’s Office, the judge offered that, “there’s no replacing the life that was lost.”
