Travis County District Judge Bob Perkins has sentenced Kaitlyn Ritcherson to 25 years in prison for the 2011 murder of Huston-Tillotson University track star Fatima Barrie.
Prosecutors said that Ritcherson, 21, stabbed Barrie in December 2011 with a pocketknife outside Republic Live, a night club in downtown Austin. Barrie was stabbed after a fight broke out between Ritcherson and her friends on West 5th Street and Lavaca Street, KVUE reports.
Charlie Baird, Ritcherson's attorney, said that his client was a loving teenager who aspired to work in the fashion industry. She has been fighting with depression ever since the death of her father in 2010.
Baird also said that Ritcherson acted in self-defence when Barrie hit her in the head. And she was actually carrying the knife in her purse to fix her hair extensions.
"She was struck in the head with a cell phone, a shoe or a fist, it doesn't matter which. She has the right to be free from violence inflicted upon her by Fatima Barrie," Baird said. "The only time Kaitlyn Ritcherson has a knife and stabs anybody is the third time she has been attacked or rushed or lunged at by Fatima Barrie."
The defense argued that Ritcherson never admitted to any official of being attacked.
"You got to see her talking to the police, and she never said, 'I acted in self defense.' Never gave any suggestion of it. Not only did she never say to the police, 'I acted in self defense,' she never suggested she needed to," said Gary Cobb, Travis County Attorney.
Barrie was a junior biology major at Huston-Tillotson.
