MARION COUNTY, Fla. — A Marion County teenager who was charged with killing three of his friends at the age of 12 will spend decades behind bars.
A judge sentenced Christopher Atkins, now 15 years old, in connection to the killings of Layla Silvernail, Camille Quarles and Michael Hodo in 2023.
Atkins was one of three charged in the murders. He and the two others, Robert Robinson and Tahj Brewton, pleaded guilty this past spring. Robinson was 17 at the time and Brewton was 16.
Investigators said the three boys and the other three teenagers robbed a man when he was trying to buy a gun from them. The group then turned on one another, with Silvernail and Hodo shot by the two other boys.
They said Robinson ordered Atkins, who went by the street name “3-5,” to shoot Quarles, who had been riding with them in the trunk of Silvernail’s small sedan.
The group then left a wounded Silvernail close to the shooting site and dumped Hodo’s body in a ditch a half mile from her, where it was discovered by another teenager walking to school the following morning.
Quarles’ body was left with the car, which the group attempted to sink in a retention pond a few miles away.
Investigators said the boys then burned their clothes as they fled back to Atkins’ house. Atkins was able to corroborate their evidence and sequence of events when he confessed to the killings and the armed robbery, they said.
“Those boys decided to play God,” Silvernail’s grandmother emotionally told the judge before he ordered his sentence, as Atkins wiped his own tears. “May God forgive me that the boys who did this are haunted every day by what they’ve done.”
Atkins’ attorneys tried to soften his image, noting his mother was arrested on a warrant after deputies came to search their house and he had trouble in school. A counselor hired by Atkins’ team testified he had elevated levels of lead in his blood and was known by family members to be “easily manipulated” and “a little bit slow,” to the audible groans of the victims’ loved ones in the audience.
Atkins appeared shaken when the counselor said he had expressed remorse and criticized Atkins’ mother’s parenting.
“Her ability to advocate for his needs seemed weak,” Dr. Barbara Russell concluded.
Atkins’ older cousin also directly apologized to the families and asked for leniency, citing Atkins’ tough upbringing.
Finally, Atkins gave a statement of his own, appearing at first to reference a script but quickly deviating.
In rushed, broken speech, he asked for another chance. He said he had a future and wanted to prove he wasn’t the person he was being cast as. He said he wanted to influence others to not take the path he had and tell them to cherish their families.
“You think I’m bad, I’m not,” he said. “I promise if you give me another chance, I’m good.”
He barely mentioned the pain of the families in the court room, left shaking their heads by his words until his attorney cut him off.
Prosecutors asked the court for more than the minimum mandatory of 40 years in prison, saying he was the least culpable of the three defendants but he knew his actions would lead to consequences when he decided to rob someone at gunpoint.
Atkins’ attorney asked for the 40, with concurrent sentences for his lesser charges.
The judge said he would not weigh Hodo and Silvernail’s deaths when passing his sentence onto Atkins because Atkins was not directly responsible for their deaths, acknowledging he knew his decision would cause some anguish.
The judge sentenced Atkins to serve the 40 years, with 798 days credit for time served, citing his young age as the biggest factor in his decision as the victims’ families sobbed.
He said this was the first 12-year-old he could recall being charged and sentenced with first degree murder in Marion County history.
Due to his age, his sentence will be eligible for review after 25 years.
Brewton and Robinson were expected to be sentenced Wednesday at 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., respectively.
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