Christopher WhitakerFile photo
CLEVELAND, Ohio – A $3 million bond was set for the South Euclid man charged in the slaying of 14-year-old Alianna DeFreeze.
Christopher Whitaker made his first court appearance Saturday morning in front of Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Michael Sliwinski.
He is charged with aggravated murder.
Whitaker’s attorney, Antonio Nicholson, objected to the $3 million bond stating that $1 million would suffice.
Sliwinski imposed the $3 million bond.
Whitaker is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Feb. 14.
Whitaker, who is a convicted sex offender, is accused of killing Alianna when she transferred buses as she was going to school at E Prep and Village Prep Woodland Hills Campus Jan. 26.
Authorities have not said how Alianna was killed. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner ruled she died from “multiple injuries.”
DNA evidence gathered by the medical examiner linked Whitaker to the crime, police said.
Alianna got on a bus about 6:45 a.m. that day. Surveillance video showed she got off the bus on East 93rd and Kinsman. She walked west towards a McDonald’s but never went in the restaurant.
She wasn’t seen again until Sunday evening when Cleveland police officers found her body in an abandoned building in the 9400 block of Fuller Avenue.
The medical examiner was unable to positively identify her for three days until a dental records match, the medical examiner said.
Whitaker served four years in prison for a 2005 sexual battery and felonious assault conviction.
He has prior convictions dating back to 1996 for aggravated theft, burglary and criminal trespassing.
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