White lives matter. The comment by the killer's mother exposes poor parenting.

Young killer sentenced to life for random Clearwater slaying

By Kristen Mitchell
Tribune staff

Renee and John Langfritz show the last photo they have with their son, Jason Paul, taken a few weeks before he was killed In January 2013. KRISTEN MITCHELL/STAFF

CLEARWATER — Jason Paul, 22, was riding his bicycle home from work when he was stabbed by a stranger and left for dead.
Paul’s mother, Renee Langfritz, remembers getting a knock on her door hours later, a police officer telling her that her son was attacked near Crest Lake Park and had died.
That was in January 2013. Authorities arrested Mychal King, then 15, the following August and accused him of the slaying. Angry with his mom and having a bad day, King went out with the intention of killing the first person he saw. He knocked Paul off his bike and stabbed him multiple times.
“We’re all having a bad day as well,” Langfritz said in court during King’s sentencing Tuesday. “That unfortunately is our life sentence.”
Having raised Paul in Pinellas County, she said everywhere reminds her of the son she lost, and she can’t drive by Crest Lake Park without breaking into tears.
King, now 17, entered a guilty plea on the first-degree murder charge and never faced trial. The two possible sentences for a first-degree murder conviction in Florida are life in prison without parole and the death penalty. But because King was a minor when he committed the crime, he legally cannot be sentenced to death — and it remains unclear if a life prison sentence can include the possibility of parole. On Tuesday that’s what he received: life with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
Pinellas-Pasco Judge Joseph Bulone oversaw the sentencing, and said the case has “extraordinary aggravating” factors. For King to kill a person simply minding his own business was shameful, Bulone said.
Langfritz said after the sentencing that the day her son died, her heart hardened. She would have liked the death penalty for King if it had been an option.
When King killed her only son, Langfritz suddenly no longer was a mother. She wouldn’t get to see him marry, have children or reach life’s milestones, as she has begun to see with his peers.
She spoke in court about adding sleeves to Paul’s favorite Bob Marley T-shirt — to cover the many stab wounds — so her son could be dressed in it for the wake.
“There is a special place in hell for people like you,” she told King.
More than 20 members of Paul’s family came to the sentencing, sporting pins with his photograph and red, yellow and green ribbons to honor his love for Marley’s music. On King’s side of the courtroom, crowding on the benches wasn’t a problem.
King was represented by attorney Daniel Hernandez, who said King had mild mental deficiencies and a severe lack of parental supervision, and grew up in poverty.
“He’s never really had a chance,” Hernandez said.
King’s mother told Bulone her son was not a bad child, and said everyone does stupid things.
King was sentenced on other charges unrelated to the slaying including aggravated battery, two counts of sale of cocaine and two counts of possession of cocaine, which will run concurrently with his murder sentence.