Ashton teen facing murder charges will move to adult detention center after 18th birthday

17-year-old is accused of strangling his 16-year-old girlfriend

David Sosa appears Monday, Dec. 2, 2024, in Lee County court via video. Sosa will be held in a juvenile facility until Dec. 18 when he turns 18 and then moved to the Lee County jail.

DIXON – The Ashton teen charged with the murdering his 16-year-old girlfriend will be move from a juvenile detention center to an adult facility Dec. 18 when he turns 18-years-old, a Lee County judge ruled Monday.

David J. Sosa, 17, is being held at the Kane County Juvenile Detention Center on four counts of first-degree murder in the strangulation death of Jaedyn A. Hill. Sosa has pleaded not guilty, Lee County Assistant Public Defender Doug Lathe said.

On Monday, Sosa appeared via video call before Judge Jacquelyn D. Ackert for a status hearing.

Lee County Assistant State’s Attorney Brian Brim told Ackert that Sosa is charged as an adult but cannot be housed in the Lee County Jail, an adult detention center, until he is 18 unless he is able to be separated from the general population. However, those restrictions lift Dec. 18, Sosa’s 18th birthday.

Brim then asked for Sosa to be transported on Dec. 18 from the Kane County Juvenile Detention Center to the Lee County Jail.

Without objection from Lathe, Sosa’s defense attorney, Ackert approved the transport order.

Sosa’s charges stem from about 7 a.m. Oct. 15 when the Lee County Sheriff’s Office received a call from the Rochelle Police Department that a teenager, later identified as Sosa, had walked into the department’s lobby. The teen said he was involved in a murder and provided information.

Lee County deputies then went to 702 Richardson Ave., Apt. A, in Ashton, to conduct a welfare check and discovered Hill’s body in the apartment, Lee County Sheriff Clay Whelan has said.

According to court documents, Sosa walked 11 miles from Ashton to Rochelle to turn himself in at the police department. Deputies found Hill’s body on the floor in the southeast bedroom of the two-bedroom apartment with a belt around her neck and a knife on the floor near her body, according to court documents.

An autopsy conducted the morning of Oct. 16 at the Peoria County Coroner’s Office preliminarily determined that strangulation was the cause of Hill’s death.

Sosa and Hill, who turned 16 on Oct. 6, were in a dating relationship and lived at the apartment together, Whelan said.

The couple also share a child together who has been living with relatives.

Sosa will appear in court next for a pretrial hearing at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 19.

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Payton Felix

Payton Felix

Payton Felix reports on local news in the Sauk Valley for the Shaw Local News Network. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago in May of 2023.