More News

Jason A. Jensen, one of four teenagers convicted in the brutal 1996 killing of 20-year-old Adrian Pilkington, will not get a new trial.

Frederick County Circuit Court Judge Theresa Adams denied Jensen's petition for a new trial in a 22-page ruling Monday.

"When faced with the facts of this case, an initial stabbing in one location with the final act of removing a bleeding victim [Pilkington] from the trunk of a car and throwing him to his ultimate death over a bridge at another location, to have pursued a theory of self-defense would not have been credible or reasonable," Adams stated in court documents.

Jensen, now 30, will most likely spend the rest of his life in jail.

Jensen's request for a new trial was first denied on Sept. 15, 1998 by the Court of Special Appeals and again denied by the Court of Appeals on Aug. 31, 1999. His Aug. 28, 2008 petition to Adams seeking "post conviction relief" for a new trial was his last opportunity.

"This is the end for him," said Dino Flores, who was assistant state's attorney at the time of Jensen's trial and co-prosecutor on the case. "Post conviction is your last resort."

Jensen will continue to serve his life sentence at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown. He will be eligible for parole after serving 15 years. But parole must come with a recommendation from the Maryland Parole Board to the governor, said Flores, now a private attorney in Frederick.

Deborah Kemp, assistant state's attorney who argued against a new trial for Jensen, was pleased with the ruling.

"I totally agree with Judge Adams and I'm very glad Jason Jensen will spend the rest of his life in prison for such a brutal and senseless murder," she said.

Jensen's attorney, Roland Patterson of Owings Mills, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

In an interview in August, Patterson said he knew it would be difficult to reverse the conviction, because it was a high-profile case.

On Feb. 10, 1997, Jensen was convicted of stabbing Pilkington twice on a gravel road in Virginia, in the company of Jean-Louis Arnaud Nance, Rachel Whitman and Brian Wooldridge.

Pilkington, who lived with his parents in Knoxville, was then stuffed in the trunk of his own car, driven to the Md. Route 17 bridge in Brunswick and thrown over, falling 65 feet to his death in the Potomac River.

Jensen was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and assault with intent to commit murder.

Nance, Whitman and Wooldridge have all served time in prison in connection with Pilkington's murder and have since been released.

The murder and the lengthy trials that followed shocked Frederick County. Coverage of the trials, which dragged on for nearly two years, saturated the news and packed courtrooms daily.

In her ruling, Adams said Jensen's claim that the murder was "self-defense," was false and said his claim that he was denied his right to testify in his first trial was also false.

Adams also dismissed Jensen's version of the murder, which contradicted the testimony of Nance, Whitman and Wooldridge.