Girl accused of Buckingham murder to argue for transfer

FORT MYERS, Fla. Attorneys for a 17-year-old girl accused of second-degree murder are trying to get her transferred out of Lee County Jail.

Judge Ramiro Manalich on Wednesday will hear arguments to transfer Lavaya May, who’s accused of recruiting two friends to help her kill 58-year-old Buckingham man Ted Lee last year. She’s been jailed since she and the two men were apprehended shortly after Lee’s death in July 2016.

Her attorneys want her to either be placed in juvenile detention or moved to another jail until she turns 18. They argue she shouldn’t be forced into solitary confinement, since she can’t be housed with adults and there are no other juvenile females in the Lee County Jail.

Manalich put off the start of May’s trial in August of this year. He granted a motion from prosecutors who argued they weren’t prepared to continue after a key piece of evidence was disallowed.

MORE: Defendant’s notebook not allowed in Buckingham murder trial

State attorneys sought to use confessions they say May made in a journal she kept in jail, but her attorneys successfully argued the notebook wasn’t searched legally.

Lee molested May for nearly a decade, according to Kristianna Soto, one of her attorneys. May told a child protective investigator Lee had sex with her, touched her inappropriately and bought her alcohol while she was at his home, according to a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office report.

MORE: LCSO knew of sexual abuse allegations before murder

Lee’s body was found outside a Manatee County church days before May, along with Hunter Michael Tyson, 25, of North Fort Myers, and Jonathan Raymond Ruffini, 19, of Fort Myers, were apprehended in Kansas.

Tyson received 40 years in prison after pleading no contest to second-degree murder. Ruffini will be sentenced after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.