A Connecticut teen will stand trial Monday for the 2022 murder of a Fairfield Prep lacrosse player following a booze-fueled house party and a spat between students from different schools.
James McGrath, 17, was fatally stabbed on May 14, 2022, in front of a Shelton home on Laurel Glen Drive after a fight broke out between underage students who had been consuming alcohol that evening.
Raul Eliah Valle of Milford, who was 16 at the time of the stabbing, has been charged with one count of murder and two counts of first-degree assault for allegedly stabbing McGrath and others. Valle attended St. Joseph High School in Trumbull near Fairfield Prep, where McGrath was a junior. Fox News Digital has reached out to Valle’s attorney, Kevin Smith, for comment.
“Unfortunately, in the suburbs of big cities, house parties are very common, and kids will be kids, but certainly, a murder case like this is very unusual,” Connecticut criminal defense attorney Mark Sherman told Fox News Digital. “I’m a little bit biased, but I think it’s fair to say there probably wasn’t an intent to kill in a case like this. There … certainly might’ve been an intent to engage in a fight or to scare, to use weapons, but it’s hard to believe … that there was an intent to kill.”
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Sherman believes that Valle’s attorneys will argue that he was acting in self-defense, and prosecutors will argue that Valle “brought a knife to a fist fight” and let his aggression spiral out of control.
“It’s really shaken these schools, in particular. . . . Both sets of kids were all really well-regarded,” Sherman said. “They were all good kids. They had a lot of school spirit. Some were athletes and … it’s also really shaken parents who tend to host parties and gatherings and kind of raises the level of vigilance, because anything can happen.”
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Connecticut-based criminal defense attorney Allan Friedman noted that Connecticut has a “duty to retreat” law, which is essentially the opposite of “stand your ground” laws in other states, requiring residents who feel they are under a threat to retreat from the situation before using force against another person.
He also said that Valle, who was a minor at the time of the alleged crimes, faces a mandatory minimum of 40 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
Both Sherman and Friedman also emphasized the potential dangers of “social hosting” as it related to McGrath’s murder.
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Shelton police in 2023 arrested Paul Leifer, 59, and Susanna Leifer, 51, and charged them with permitting minors to possess alcohol. Susanna Leifer was also charged with second-degree reckless endangerment after McGrath’s death. They are also facing several lawsuits in connection with the crime after allegedly providing minors with alcohol.
Last year, the couple were sentenced to two years of accelerated rehabilitation plus 50 hours of community service, according to WTNH.
“On or about May 14, 2022, Defendants hosted a social gathering at their home on the premises during which a substantial amount of alcohol was served to, and consumed by, individuals under the age of [21],” states a 2023 lawsuit filed by Thomas Connery, the father of another minor who was stabbed that evening in 2022.
After the fight at the Leifers’ house in Shelton, teenagers described as St. Joseph High School students arrived at another party on Laurel Glen Drive in Shelton. Another fight ensued at the Laurel Glen Drive house, where four students were stabbed, including McGrath, who died of his injuries, according to a police report that Fox News Digital obtained at the time.
Connery’s lawsuit further alleges that after a fight broke out at the Leifers’ home, the two parents allowed the party attendees, who had been drinking, to leave the premises instead of breaking up the fight, calling police or taking “otherwise appropriate action.”
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In a second lawsuit, one of the minors who was harmed after the Leifers’ party and his father similarly allege that the Leifers knew they were supplying alcohol to people who were underage at their home on May 14, 2022.
Police responded to several 911 calls reporting a fight that occurred just before midnight on May 14, 2022, outside the Laurel Glen Drive property and found multiple victims on the front lawn. The owner of the residence where the party took place was home at the time of the incident, according to a warrant.
At one point, there were about 25 people engaged in the fight on the front lawn of the home, witnesses told police. At least three juvenile suspects are mentioned in the report, including Valle, who is suspected of having a knife. McGrath had “one stab wound to the left side of the chest,” the warrant states. “The stab wound went through the rib and heart.”
A doctor from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Connecticut told police that there were approximately 1.8 liters of blood in McGrath’s lungs.
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“Now that kids are coming up on graduation season … a lot of more affluent people, they do not understand the dangers associated with so-called social hosting,” Friedman said. “Providing or permitting the consumption of alcohol by minors … the way the law can make it now is: if you’re holding events, and let’s just say it’s three or four kids at your house, and then all of a sudden everyone goes on … Instagram or Facebook, whatever these kids use these days, and they all say, ‘Hey. There’s a party at this house,’ and then all of a sudden … a huge group of people show up in Ubers.”
Under Connecticut law, parents have a responsibility to stop the procession of alcohol or call police, Friedman said, but sometimes parents “are reluctant to do that.”
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Both attorneys noted that on top of the threat of criminal charges, parents who engage in social hosting and provide alcohol to minors can also face civil consequences if minors are injured at an event with underage drinking where parents were present.
A representative from St. Joseph’s told Fox News Digital in 2022 that Valle had been in good academic standing and had not been in any fights at school before the May 14 incident.
Valle was released on $2 million bond just days after his arrest in May 2022.
An obituary for McGrath described the 17-year-old as the “sunshine” of his parents’ life and his sister’s “best friend and confidant.”
“Many described Jim as a wonderfully happy person with a big heart who was a loving friend to many,” the obituary states. “He loved his school, Fairfield Prep, and he excelled as an athlete in every sport he chose. He played football and lacrosse for Fairfield Prep and as a youth for Shelton and Connecticut Wolves as well. He understood the meaning of being part of a team.”
Fox News’ Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
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