‘I miss my baby boy.’ Defendant in Turlock’s Donnelly Park homicide pleads guilty
One of four defendants originally charged with murder in the beating death of a young man in Turlock’s Donnelly Park has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
“The resolution of the case against Terry Van Meter for voluntary manslaughter was as a lesser charge to murder based on the fact that he was not the actual killer,” Deputy District Attorney Merrill Hoult said in an email Friday.
Van Meter, of Manteca, was 16 when he and three others were arrested in the murder of 21-year-old Cameron Tracy, who was beaten unconscious with a metal baseball bat on Dec. 4, 2017. Tracy died from his injuries on Dec. 13.
Van Meter, Shaun Santos, 24, and Lavinia Perez, 41, both of Modesto, were charged with murder and two counts of robbery for the attack on Tracy and his girlfriend, as well as with two other robberies at the park the week before. A 15-year-old was also arrested.
Hoult said Senate Bill 1437, which became effective in January 2019, changed the felony murder rule, which once allowed prosecutors to charge an accomplice with first degree murder even if he was not the actual killer or had no intent to kill the victim.
During the sentencing on Jan. 9 Hoult read letters written by Tracy’s parents.
They said he loved being outside, riding his skateboard, running and volunteering as a counselor at the outdoor education camp Foothill Horizons in Sonora.
The day Tracy was killed he and his family were packing up to move to Utah four days later.
“To live, work, chase his dream of being a photographer, and continue his love of working with kids in outdoor education,” his father Brad Tracy wrote.
Brad Tracy’s letter said Cameron was the final victim in a series of increasingly violent robberies and that he showed bravery in his final moments, which “allowed his girlfriend to run for help and what ultimately lead to the capture of these individuals so that they would not have the opportunity to take another victim.”
Cameron’s mother Jennifer Tracy said for nine days after the attack she stayed at her son’s bedside in the hospital.
In her letter she said that Cameron was declared brain dead on Dec. 13. Four recipients received his organs, she said.
“Since this time my family and I have had to try and live out lives with a huge hole where Cameron should be,” Jennifer Tracy wrote.
“Death has seemed like a better option than walking around silently dying. I don’t want to die. It’s just been the pain, it has become too much at times for me to handle alone ... I miss my baby boy every second of the day. I just hope that one day I will get to see him again,” she wrote.
A Modesto teenager was also arrested along with the other three but, unlike Van Meter, his case will remain in juvenile court because he was under 16 at the time of the killing, Hoult said. His case was also affected by a new law.
Senate Bill 1391, signed into law in October 2018, prevents youth under the age of 16 from being prosecuted in adult court.
“The case against that juvenile is actually one of several cases that are pending review in the California Supreme Court on the issue of whether SB 1391 is constitutional,” Hoult said.
Van Meter’s case went to adult court in June after a transfer hearing in juvenile court.
In addition to his plea for voluntary manslaughter, Van Meter pleaded guilty to robbing Cameron Tracy and attempting to rob Tracy’s girlfriend. The sentences for those will run concurrently with the six-year sentence Van Mater received for voluntary manslaughter.
Hoult said the other two robbery charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence.
She said all three offenses Van Meter was convicted of are strikes under California’s Three Strikes law, which means a judge can increase the punishment if Van Meter is convicted of future felony offenses.
Van Meter has already served more than a third of his prison sentence in jail while awaiting prosecution.
The cases against Santos and Perez are still in pretrial litigation.
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
