KINGMAN – Another defendant has been sentenced in a bizarre case in which an estranged Kingman couple admitted disposing the body of their teenage son before reporting him missing to law enforcement authorities early this year.
Charges are still pending against Amber Leah-Valentine, 41, but Jon Imes, 42, appeared for sentencing Oct. 13 after pleading guilty to abandonment of a dead body.
Defense attorney Paul Amann explained that Imes complied with an alleged order by Richard Pounds to discard the body of 16-year-old Kenneth Jones, worried that Pounds might harm Jones’ 14-year-old sister.
“He was under duress and fearful for his daughter’s life at that time,” Amann said. “He felt like there was a gun held to her head and that he had to do what Richard Pounds was telling him that he had to do, and that was dispose of his son’s body.”
Judge Billy Sipe eschewed the Amann offering and said the body disposal was an “incomprehensible” act.
“I can’t imagine any scenario where I would take my 16-year-old son’s body, who passed away, or another way to look at it was murdered, in my house, and then just dump him out in the middle of nowhere like he was a piece of trash. I would take a bullet to the head before I would do that to my own child.”
The two-year prison term imposed by Judge Sipe was the maximum punishment possible under terms of the plea agreement.
Prosecutor Amanda Claerhout has said the medical examiner ruled Jones’ death a homicide, but also determined that malnutrition may have been a contributing factor. Claerhout said extensive investigation failed to produce evidence to charge anyone in Jones’ death.
“It doesn’t appear anyone is going to be charged with the murder of the victim in this case, which is hard for me to understand,” Sipe said.
Authorities said Pounds, 34, and his girlfriend were living with Leah-Valentine along with Jones and Jones’ sister. Pounds pleaded guilty to aggravated assault for blinding the sister in one of her eyes while people “were playing BB gun wars” inside a Kingman residence.
Pounds is serving an 8.75-year prison term.
