This case is pretty clearly murder, as defined by essentially any state. The interesting part (from a psychosocial and semantic viewpoint) is that she committed so many crimes that evening that most get lost in the pile. She could be charged with murder for far less than she actually did
If I kidnap someone and lock them in my garage, I’d be considered for murder if they died, in any jurisdiction. Not providing air, food or water, and knowingly deprived them of essential heart or other medications – these have all been classified as clear murder in many jurisdictions. (I’m horrified by parents who act like they are being gracious by feeding, clothing, and sheltering their children. (Listen, bub, you starve, dehydrate, or freeze your kid, and I’ll pull the lever myself. I don’t care how rebellious they are!)
It would be interesting to tabulate how many different crimes she committed that night, some of which she admits continuing even after this supposedly traumatic event.** She kept drinking, doing drugs, and going to those same clubs 10 miles away to do it (vs drinking or drugging at home, if you want to call her an ‘addict’)?
Presumably, if he hadn’t died, she’d have left him there indefinitely. Her actions over the next week displayed no remorse. She continued to drink, do drugs, and go to the same clubs after this “traumatic” event. She volunteered the details, with little need, apparently feeling little shame. I don’t see hopeful signs for rehabilitation in her behavior over the past 2 years. She’s still a threat to anyone around her, claiming only ‘bad judgement’ as an excuse?
Specific ‘intent to kill’ is not as relevant as some argue. If I see an injured man on the street, bring him home to help him, and he sees a stash of drugs in my house. I can’t lock him in my garage until he dies, and expect a charge of depraved indifference, manslaughter, etc. despite my original intent to “help him”. She had no benevolent intent, but simply denies any malevolent intent. The fact is, she displayed a near-sociopathic disregard for him as a human. I truly wonder if she actually did apologize to him , or if that was a lie to attempt to mitigate what she’d done.
Imagine a gangster arguing "I didn’t want him dead. I shot him because… " a) I was trying to intimidate him; b) I was interrogating him; c) I lost my cool after he didn’t respond to torture; d) how esle could I keep him from testifying against me; e) after his fingers & toes, knees & elbows, his head an torso were the only places left to shoot him. “Hey, he owed me money. He dies, I don’t get paid. But you shoot a guy that many times, they tend to die. I didn’t write the laws of physics.”
Her only defense? “I didn’t set out to kill anyone … but you ram a guy with a car so hard his leg comes off, then lock him in the garage overnight, and he’s gonna bleed to death. I didn’t write the laws of physics.”
(the friend who wanted to call the EMTs is an accessory: it’s no different than keeping mum as your neighbor slowly tortures runaway teens to death in their basement. Is ‘friendship’ truly a justification for that?)