The 17-year-old runaway charged with murder in the homicide of University of Texas student Haruka Weiser described an unstable childhood in which he was a victim of violence while in the state's foster care system, according to a 2014 profile published in a Texarkana high school student newspaper.
Meechaiel Khalil Criner was profiled by a Texas High School's student publication Tiger Times as a sophomore in an article titled "Voice of hope." He told the publication that he'd been taken from his mother, who he said had a drinking problem, and placed into a foster care system he called "almost a prison."
Texarkana school district officials would not confirm whether Criner was a student there, citing privacy laws.
Criner said he was in the care of Child Protective Services when in the fifth grade. He later lived with his grandmother, the article said.
However, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services told the American-Statesman Friday that Child Protective Services still has conservatorship over Criner. He was listed as a runaway when admitted into an emergency youth shelter in Austin Monday, a spokeswoman said.
Criner told the high school paper that while in the foster care system, a foster parent threw him to the ground and injured his back. In another instance, he was locked in a bedroom, he said.
In elementary school, Criner said, students bullied him regularly for his thick accent. But Criner said he aimed to use those traumatic experiences as motivation to reach his goals.
“Every day, I feel people think I’m not capable of much,” he said. “What I want to leave behind is my name — I want them to know who Meechaiel Criner is.”
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