Slain prep school lacrosse player's father 'astonished' after murder suspect acquitted in stabbing case
"I'm astonished at the results, but, you know, it's due process," a stoic Kevin McGrath said outside the state Superior Court in Milford, Connecticut, later describing his son as a "wonderful person."
"He's entitled to it," said McGrath. "And at the end of the day, the jury made their verdict. I'm not sure if, you know, they were in the same courtroom as we all were together, but that's the verdict. And we'll live with it."
McGrath was referring to Raul Valle, 20, who, after an eight-day trial and nearly three days of jury deliberation, was acquitted of murdering McGrath's son, James "Jimmy" McGrath, during a brawl at a rowdy, booze-fueled high school party in 2022.
McGrath, who was 17 at the time, was a lacrosse player at Fairfield College Preparatory Academy. Valle was 16 at the time of the fatal stabbing, but was charged as an adult.
Valle was also acquitted on the lesser included charge of intentional manslaughter, two charges of first-degree assault and one charge of second-degree assault.
The jury was deadlocked on lesser included charges of reckless manslaughter and reckless assault. Judge Shari Murphy declared a mistrial on those counts, leaving the door open for Valle to potentially be retried.
"I can't even imagine that, you know, I'm standing here giving this part of the speech," Kevin McGrath said Wednesday. "I mean, I was ready for maybe manslaughter. I was not ready for not guilty. I'll be honest with you: I don't think anybody was."
"I was extremely confident, probably overconfident. I'm shocked," he said. "You know, it's probably why I'm in control. I'm shocked right now of the verdict."
McGrath was also magnanimous at times.
"Raul Valle received a fair trial," he assured reporters.
"I don't believe Raul Valle woke up Saturday morning and said he was going to kill Jimmy McGrath. You know, I never believed that. They didn't know each other. I'm just in shock that an innocent young man with a brilliant potential is not with us anymore. And the person that took his life is right now free tonight."
He also graciously thanked first responders, investigators, the court and the media for conducting themselves professionally throughout the criminal justice process.
McGrath family attorney Michael Rosnick spoke briefly about the possibility of further legal action.
"There are lesser included charges," he said. "I anticipate, we anticipate, that the state's attorney's office will file an information, but I'm going to let the state's attorney's office speak for itself."
The parties are currently embroiled in civil litigation.
Valle attended St. Joseph High School in Trumbull near Fairfield Prep, where McGrath was a junior. Both had been at a house party on the evening of May 14, 2022, that involved a fight and underage drinking prior to the stabbing, which occurred at another house party later that night.
At one point, there were about 25 people engaged in the fight on the front lawn of the home, whose owners were present during the brawl, witnesses told police. At least three juvenile suspects are mentioned in the report, including Valle, who was suspected of having a knife.
McGrath had "one stab wound to the left side of the chest," the warrant states. "The stab wound went through the rib and heart."
Valle claimed during his trial that he acted in self-defense, and that he was protecting one of his friends.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
29 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Execution date set for man who abducted woman from a Florida insurance office and killed her
A man who abducted a woman from a Florida insurance office and killed her is scheduled for execution in Florida under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Kayle Bates is set to die Aug. 19 in the 10th execution scheduled for this year. DeSantis signed the warrant Friday, just three days after the state executed Michael Bell for fatally shooting two people outside a Florida bar in 1993 as part of an attempted revenge killing. Bell was the 26th person to die by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., exceeding the 25 executions carried out last year. It is the highest total since 2015, when 28 people were put to death. Bates, now 67, was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and attempted sexual battery in the June 14, 1982, Bay County killing of Janet White. Bates abducted White from the State Farm insurance office where she worked, took her into some woods behind the building, attempted to rape her, stabbed her to death, and tore a diamond ring from one of her fingers, according to a letter from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier summarizing the history of the case. Bates' attorney, James Driscoll Jr., said in a phone call Saturday that he would be filing further appeals in the case. 'We believe his execution would violate the U.S. constitution,' he said.
Washington Post
29 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Execution date set for man who abducted woman from a Florida insurance office and killed her
A man who abducted a woman from a Florida insurance office and killed her is scheduled for execution in Florida under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Kayle Bates is set to die Aug. 19 in the 10th execution scheduled for this year . DeSantis signed the warrant Friday, just three days after the state executed Michael Bell for fatally shooting two people outside a Florida bar in 1993 as part of an attempted revenge killing.
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump administration pulls back on work combating human trafficking, long a top GOP priority
President Donald Trump holds up the "big, beautiful bill" that was signed into law as during a Fourth of July military family picnic on the South Lawn of the White House on July 4, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (-Pool) A key office charged by Congress with coordinating the federal government's work against human trafficking was gutted July 11, the latest in a string of cuts across different agencies to the government's work on an issue that Republicans have long hailed as a top priority. The cuts at the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP) decimated a team that worked to combat labor and sex trafficking abroad and helped coordinate domestic efforts across other agencies, including the departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and Labor. The so-called 'reduction-in-force' at the State Department came amid a maelstrom surrounding the Trump administration over its handling of federal investigations into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019. Officials have said he died by suicide, but his death sparked new conspiracy theories that were fueled by President Donald Trump, who at one point maintained a friendship with Epstein. When this month the Justice Department said there was no Epstein client list, after previously promising to release it, many who had supported Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi were angered, in part because they believed the client list would reveal new truths about Epstein. Republicans have for years made human trafficking a key issue, pushing for legislation to boost law enforcement and support for victims and telling voters that combating trafficking was a major priority. This report was originally published by The 19th. The Illuminator is a founding member of The 19th News Network. For Secretary of State Marco Rubio, anti-trafficking work has been a centerpiece of his policy agenda. Rubio cosponsored bipartisan legislation to help domestic trafficking survivors during his time in the Senate and as recently as May discussed his concerns about a rise in human trafficking in an unstable Haiti. He criticized former President Joe Biden's immigration policy by saying it 'empowered' child trafficking into the United States. Bondi, too, has long been an advocate of local and federal efforts to combat human trafficking, making it a key focus of her tenure as Florida's attorney general. She went on to lobby on behalf of a Christian anti-human-trafficking advocacy group and the Qatari government on anti-human-trafficking efforts. People working on human trafficking issues in the federal government and for advocacy groups on the front lines of that work in the United States and abroad have been surprised at the pullback. The administration's attention to the issue during Trump's first term and the ascent of high-profile advocates to the Cabinet gave them the impression that their work would be shielded from the kinds of cuts they were seeing elsewhere. Instead, funding and staffing for human trafficking work has taken sizable hits. 'We really thought that the broad, bipartisan nature of the issue of trafficking was going to provide some protection for our office. All Americans are against trafficking — Republicans, Democrats, everybody,' said Cindy Dyer, the former ambassador-at-large under Biden to monitor and combat trafficking in persons at the State Department. The office she oversaw had close to 90 full-time staffers. It lost about a dozen to the Trump administration's voluntary resignation program earlier in the year, and, last Friday, about half were dismissed. The remaining were demoted, Dyer said. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The office's work spanned a broad range of human trafficking issues, including sex trafficking, which disproportionately affects women, girls and LGBTQ+ people, and forced domestic labor, which also disproportionately affects women and girls. Dyer is now the chief program officer at the McCain Institute at Arizona State University, which promotes democracy and human rights across the world. 'We really thought that broad bipartisan support we have had for 25 years — ever since the Trafficking Victims Protection Act passed in 2000 — would provide us some protection, and it did not. And I think people are really both surprised and disappointed,' said Dyer, who also worked in the Justice Department in the George W. Bush administration. Gov. Landry makes leadership change at Children and Family Services The most recent reauthorization of the law was approved in 2017, during the first Trump administration. The law charged the TIP office with producing an annual report that was due to Congress on June 30; this year's report has been delayed without explanation. Last week's cuts severely impacted the team working on that report, which is widely considered a critical global assessment of human trafficking prevention work. Before those staffing cuts, the office had also paused the disbursement of grants for nongovernmental organizations working on human trafficking. The 19th could not confirm the current status of those grants. Varina Winder, who worked as the chief of staff in the Office of Global Women's Issues at the State Department during the Biden administration, said she was dismayed by the pullback on work to uphold global human rights, including stopping trafficking at TIP. 'If you can't empower the office that is literally ending human slavery, what does that say about your larger ambitions about the value proposition of humans in this administration?' she said. Martina Vandenberg of the Human Trafficking Legal Center said federal work to combat human trafficking falls into four buckets: the State Department's global work, prosecution at the Justice Department, federal funding for outside groups and immigration policy. Every area has taken a hit since the start of the administration, Vandenberg said. 'We have grave concerns,' said Vandenberg, whose anti-trafficking advocacy group connects trafficking survivors with pro bono representation. 'It is distressing to see U.S. anti-trafficking programs decimated by an administration that rode to victory, at least in part, on claims that it would combat human trafficking.' The Human Trafficking Legal Center published an analysis of federal data this week showing that visas for victims of human trafficking who cooperate with law enforcement to arrest and prosecute traffickers are being issued at record-low levels, despite a growing backlog. At the Labor Department, the Trump administration in March put an end to close to 70 programs and more than $500 million in grant funding that the agency was using to combat child labor and human trafficking in countries that have trade agreements with the United States. The funding helped ensure foreign governments were fighting human trafficking while also protecting U.S. jobs, The Washington Post reported at the time. The office that managed the funding was also tasked with producing a congressionally mandated report that, in part, outlined goods produced with child labor. 'To have this administration cut funding so significantly has just been a huge blow to the progress that has been made over the last several decades,' said a federal government employee familiar with this work who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation. 'Within the anti-trafficking movement and in the government, we were hoping that we would be protected in some way since during Trump's first administration, there was more funding for anti-trafficking then than there had been in previous administrations even. And Ivanka Trump took a really strong interest in the issue,' the employee said. In his first term, the president's oldest daughter made the issue central to her portfolio and hosted a summit at the White House. 'We've just seen a huge shift in this administration, and honestly, it's sent shock waves through the community,' the employee said. On Thursday night, Trump said he would authorize Bondi to request from a federal court the grand jury testimony from Epstein's trial. It was a reversal from her previous position on what she would release, though it is still unclear what transcripts the courts could approve to be made public. Reps. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, have been trying to force a floor vote on releasing the complete Epstein files. Several far-right Republicans have signed on to the discharge petition effort so far, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Eli Crane, Lauren Boebert and Max Miller. Discharge petitions are a procedural maneuver that circumvents House leadership and the powerful Rules Committee to force a floor vote. They've rarely been successful because they require a majority of House members' signatures to kick off. Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, managed to kill the last one raised in April, which would have let new parents vote by proxy while away from the Capitol. But Khanna said he's confident that the petition will move forward: 'We have the votes.' 'Moms being allowed to vote in the House is important,' he said of the failed discharge petition effort, then added: 'But the release of the Epstein files to the MAGA base matters 100 times more to them. I think it's a totally different situation in terms of the intensity of scrutiny. … The base cares so deeply about this.' Next week, a group of high-profile Republicans are expected to gather at the Capitol for the annual International Summit Against Human Trafficking put on by the Conservative Political Action Conference, the group behind the annual gathering of right-wing activists and politicians. 'This pivotal event upholds CPAC's steadfast dedication to eradicating modern-day slavery by uniting survivors, legislators, advocates, and law enforcement from both domestic and international communities to drive bold solutions,' the announcement for the event reads. The group said earlier this month that Trump's investments in immigration enforcement in the 'one big beautiful bill' will 'hit traffickers where it hurts by taking away the shadows they exploit.' Just days later, Freedom Network USA, one of the leading anti-trafficking groups in the country, is planning to hold a webinar on World Day Against Trafficking in Persons 'to break down how the Trump administration's heinous attacks have impacted human trafficking survivors.' This story was originally reported by Mel Leonor Barclay, Marissa Martinez and Jennifer Gerson of The 19th. Meet Mel , Marissa and Jennifer and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
