Staff Photo by David Barry Hamilton County Juvenile Court

A 15-year-old boy accused of raping and killing a little girl in April will not be tried as an adult, a Hamilton County Juvenile Court judge ruled Friday.

In a four-page opinion, Judge Suzanne Bailey ruled that Hamilton County assistant district attorneys had presented "marginally sufficient evidence" during several recent hearings to suggest that the teenager raped the 3-year-old victim.

Authorities nevertheless charged the teen with first-degree murder by aggravated rape of a child and aggravated rape of a child on April 23, two days after the victim died at T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital from sepsis as the result of a tear in her rectum. The teen was 14 at the time he was charged.

Neither the prosecutors nor the teen's defense attorney could be reached Friday for comment.

A detective had asked repeatedly during the teen's interrogation if he had ever "experimented sexually" with the girl and also told him, "I know this is a burden on you. I can see it all over your face."

During the interrogation video, the teen spoke softly, admitting he "smacked" the girl for playing with his guitar but adamantly denying that he fatally hurt her.

The defense claimed during the hearings that the family's small trailer in Georgetown, Tenn., was full of people who could have hurt the child, who was not a blood relative of the boy.

Home life in the trailer was a point Judge Bailey discussed at length in her order, in which she also states her opinion that the teenager can be rehabilitated if he ultimately is found guilty in a Juvenile Court trial.

"The home environment in which the tragic death of this child occurred raised many questions for the Court," Judge Bailey said in her written opinion. "(The defendant) did not sleep in a bed but instead slept on the sofa with the 2-year-old brother and the victim child."

The teen said he slept on the sofa, Judge Bailey wrote, "because he was tired of boys and men knocking on his window at night to come into the trailer to be with his half sisters."

The 15-year-old also was frequently left alone to care for four children under the age of 3, Judge Bailey noted, and was responsible for "bathing, feeding and disciplining the small children with little supervision, support or training."

He even was required to take care of his stepfather, who has a brain injury and is bed-ridden, Judge Bailey stated.

Also discussed in the written opinion were the teen's cognitive abilities, which an expert testified were "below average" for a typical boy his age.

"This cognitive deficit could diminish his ability to control his behavior and/or to understand the consequences of his actions," Judge Bailey wrote.

She said she believed the Hamilton County juvenile correction system can teach him the necessary coping skills to "avoid dangerous behavior" should he be convicted.

The teen's trial has not been scheduled, but the harshest punishment he could receive if convicted is incarceration accompanied by intensive rehabilitation until his 19th birthday.