Charleston had turned 14 just three days before he took the keys of his mother's Chrysler Sebring from her purse early June 30.
With two of his teenage cousins and a friend as passengers, police said, Charleston cruised around his neighborhood, then hopped onto I-95, raced past state troopers without his headlights on, sped off the Academy Road exit, and then, at close to 100 m.p.h., blew through a light and slammed head-on into a Volkswagen carrying Jessica Feldman, 20, and her boyfriend, Daniel Fouracre, 22. The couple were returning from a night out with friends.
Feldman, of Huntingdon Valley, who was driving, was hospitalized with arm injuries.
Fouracre, of Bensalem, a 2007 graduate of Bucks County Vocational-Technical School, was in the passenger seat. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Two of the teens traveling with Charleston suffered broken bones and cuts. Charleston was treated for neck pain and released into police custody, charged as an adult with third-degree murder.
Since the accident, he has been in a protective ward for minors at the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center, a few blocks from his home. Charleston was not in the courtroom for Friday's hearing.
Charleston had graduated from eighth grade at Austin Meehan Middle School a week before his arrest.
McCaffery presented Charleston's school records, which listed 18 disciplinary suspensions since the fourth grade. Some were for fighting, simple assault, reckless endangerment, and threatening staff members, McCaffery said. Others were for groping and inappropriate touching.
Charleston had been late for kindergarten 66 times, the records said, and had passed through four different schools. He spent sixth grade in a school for troubled students.
