Teen Fiend Gets 50 Years In Jail

A teen who wrote about wanting to do "horrible things" was sentenced to 50 years in prison for trying to kill a woman by driving up onto a sidewalk to hit her with his sport utility vehicle.

District Judge Kenneth Neill sentenced Daniel Robbins to 80 years, with 30 years suspended, for attempted murder. Robbins pleaded guilty in February.

Police say Robbins, now 17, told investigators he tried to kill Patty Emanuel, 40, while she was jogging last May 27 because he wanted to have sex with her corpse.

"Mental health is no excuse for this act," Neill said. "He knew what he was doing."

Neill noted a class assignment where Robbins, at age 15, listed as New Year's resolutions goals such as tasting human flesh and getting a driver's license "so I can do those horrible things people like to read about in the paper."

"The defendant made up his mind to run her down well in advance," Neill said. "It is a miracle that she survived."

Emanuel was hospitalized for 24 days with six fractured vertebrae, four fractures in her pelvis, a collapsed lung, three broken ribs and other injuries.

She sat in the courtroom for Robbins' sentencing, but did not speak, according to the Great Falls Tribune. But a prosecutor read a letter that the victim wrote to the court.

"Imagine being 40 years old and just the night before thinking about how healthy you are and then waking up begging for Depends to be put on so you didn't have to go through the pain of getting up to go to the commode," Emanuel wrote.

"Every time I walk, my mind is on Robbins, mostly because I walk with a limp," she said, according to the Tribune.

As with all juvenile sentences, Robbins' will automatically be reviewed before he turns 21 in November 2007.

At a hearing last year, the police officer assigned to C.M. Russell High School testified that school officials had met with Robbins and his parents several times after his teacher alerted them to the boy's "resolutions."