Teen sentenced to 20 years for role in fatal fire

NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WDRB) -- A judge orders a maximum, 20-year prison sentence for Kylie Jenks, the last person to plead guilty and to be sentenced for the arson that killed three children in New Albany last January.

Jenks was 19 in July when she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson. She was the driver of the car that brought her friend Cody Cashion and two others to a home where Cashion fired a flare gun into a bedroom window. Inside the home, four children -- all siblings -- were asleep in a single bed. The flare set the room afire.

Three of the children, 6-year-old Tai'zah, 4-year-old Tyrese and 2-year-old Trinity Hughes. Their sister, 5-year-old Taty'Ana, was the only survivor. She was critically injured.

"Now I feel like I got justice times three for our babies," said the children's grandmother, Marie Clark, after the sentencing hearing Thursday.

Earlier this year, Cashion pleaded guilty and received a 65-year sentence for murder and other charges. Shelby Makowsky received a 20-year sentence after a guilty plea to conspiracy to commit arson. A juvenile also in the car has had his case resolved, prosecutor Steve Owen said.

Investigators said the teens did not know the children were in the home. They said Cashion fired the flare gun into the home over a debt involving property from a person who lived there. The children were houseguests.

Owen called Jenks, Cashion, Makowsky and the juvenile "little gangsters" who had been involved in criminal activity beyond the fatal fire. He asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence of 20 years.

Jenks' attorney, Amber Shaw, asked the judge to impose a lesser prison term with probation so that she might learn "coping skills" and "how to make better decisions" in her life. Cashion was "able to batter and coerce" Jenks into driving to the home the night of the fire, Shaw said.

Jenks read a statement to the judge, apologizing for her actions. "I'm terribly sorry about the night I made very poor decisions," Jenks said.

"I'm ashamed of myself, and I wasn't thinking about what could happen," Jenks continued. "I take responsibility. I feel guilt, shame, regret," she said.

The children's mother, Teresa Hughes, asked the judge for "a little justice." She said, "This act of violence has broken my family. It hurts. It hurts everyday." Hughes also said that surviving child Taty'Ana asks about her siblings daily and sometimes says she wants to go to heaven to see them.

She bought the children new clothes and toys the day of the fire, the children's grandmother Marie Clark said.

"They went to bed so happy, and they never woke up," Clark said. "2, 4 and 6 years old, gone, because of what? An iPad, cell phone or TV?"

Judge Cody noted the four teens involved returned to the home hours after the fire to retrieve a part of the flare's shell casing. "There must not have been any conscience," Cody said in court. "And that bothers me the most."