Charges reduced in Aragon death case

Prosecutor will not seek murder convictions in death of 11-year-old girl

By :TERRY SMITH

Second-degree murder charges have been reduced to involuntary manslaugher against the father and cousin of an 11-year-old girl who died of hypothermia on Christmas Day.

Motions to amend the criminal complaints against Robert E. Aragon and Kenneth Quintana were filed late Tuesday in Lincoln County 5th District Court.

Aragon, a 55-year-old Jerome man, is the father of Sage Aragon, who froze to death after being permitted to attempt to walk some nine miles through frigid weather to meet her mother in the West Magic Reservoir area in southern Blaine County. Aragon allegedly caused the girl to make the walk after his vehicle became stuck in snow.

Twenty-nine-year-old Quintana, a cousin to Aragon, was also charged with the same crime.

A reason for the reduction in charges was not immediately available from the Lincoln County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

Both men are still charged with felony injury to a child for allegedly permitting Sage's brother, 12-year-old Bear Aragon, to make the same walk. Bear was found alive but required treatment for hypothermia.

Both Aragon and Quintana remain incarcerated, Aragon in Jerome and Quintana in the Blaine County jail in Hailey.