Man gets plea in teen’s killing

Jace Radke

Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2002 | 11:03 a.m.

After sitting through three days of testimony about his alleged sexually deviant behavior and methamphetamine abuse, a man accused of raping and killing a teenage girl in Henderson pleaded guilty Tuesday to lesser charges to avoid a trial.

Steven Finnegan, 32, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and kidnapping, charges that will draw a sentence of six to 18 years in prison, for the 1998 killing of Jessica Heaney, a 16-year-old Silverado High School student.

Finnegan was originally charged with murder, sexual assault and first-degree kidnapping, which could have drawn longer sentences upon conviction. Prosecutors said they agreed to the the plea bargain because evidence linking Finnegan to the crime was circumstantial and because Finnegan's appeal chances might have been good.

"Six to 18 years may seem low, but we feel the defendant will do the majority of the sentence, making it similar to the 10 to 20 years he would have served on a murder charge," Chief Deputy District Attorney Doug Herndon said.

Finnegan will be sentenced Jan. 22.

Jessica's stepfather, John Heaney, said he hopes and believes that Finnegan will be in prison for about 18 years.

"I don't see him getting out in the near future, and I believe he will serve the bulk of his sentence," Heaney said.

Heaney's family had watched a teary Finnegan admit to killing Heaney before District Judge Kathy Hardcastle.

"It's never going to be enough," John Heaney said as he left the courtroom. "No matter what happens it's not going to bring back our daughter.

John Heaney said he was relieved that the guilty plea meant there would be no trial.

"We had to sit through the evidence (in preliminary hearings), and I didn't really want to sit through it again at a trial and have to see the pictures," he said.

Heaney was found dead on March 7, 1998, in a clubhouse restroom at the Arbor Court condominiums.

Heaney had been sodomized and strangled. Two years later fingerprints found at the scene were matched to Finnegan, who was living in the condominium complex at the time of Heaney's death.

Finnegan's plea bargain came just before Hardcastle was set to rule on whether Finnegan's criminal history and allegations about his behavior would be allowed into the trial.

During a three-day evidentiary hearing prosecutors called witnesses who testified about Finnegan's two convictions of open and gross lewdness, and about alleged public masturbation by Finnegan.

Herndon said he was operating under the assumption that a majority of the evidence presented to Hardcastle would be admitted for use at trial, but the negotiations for a plea bargain were under way during the hearings.

"The deal was in the ballpark of what we had discussed, and I think that once the (defendant's) family heard the 'bad act' evidence they decided to plea," Herndon said.

"We explained to the (victim's) family that 'bad act' evidence sounds good, but can create appellate issues, and we did not want to come back on appeal," Herndon said.

Special Public Defender Lee McMahon said she was offended by the media coverage of the evidentiary hearing, and said it convinced her client that he would be unable to get a fair trial.

"The judge can decide if the 'bad acts' information is prejudicial or probative, but it doesn't do any good if all the information is out in the newspapers and on the radio," McMahon said.

McMahon said that she would have liked to have had the hearing closed to the public.

Herndon said he didn't think the media coverage of the case was out of the ordinary.