St. Joseph County’s Juvenile Justice Center is reviewing the rehabilitation program that allowed a detainee to attend a baseball game. Prosecutors say he left the game and murdered a man.
Bill Bruinsma, the center’s executive director, says officials are taking a hard look at what went wrong on a July 30 trip to a South Bend Cubs game. It was a part of the center’s BridgeLink program that aims to rehabilitate kids who’ve been arrested for various offenses before they end up in adult prison.
"Like we try to get them their driver's license, we try to get them their GED," Bruinsma said. "We try to get them a job so they have money in their pockets, so when they leave, they're on their way to saying, 'OK, I have a future.'"
But Bruinsma said 18-year-old Cyjarron Odynski, one of three juvenile offenders who were allowed to go to the game with two detention officers, somehow escaped during the game.
When the staff realized Odynski had left the group, they immediately searched the bathroom and then called police.
Prosecutors say Odynski’s girlfriend had picked him up from the stadium, and he later fatally shot 20-year-old Isaiah Walton-Davis from behind in an alley off Sample Street.
"It's a tragedy because you lose the child who died, and you lose (Odynski) now. He'll have to go adult court and maybe the Department of Correction."
