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BRIGHTON – A man who was arrested in Wyoming after police say he confessed to killing his girlfriend in their suburban Denver apartment was sentenced Wednesday to 34 years in prison.
Jonathan Akin, 24, previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the Nov. 25, 2018, stabbing death of 21-year-old Autumn Rivera. He surrendered to police in Powell, Wyoming on Nov. 27, 2018, and officers found Rivera dead and wrapped in a bed spread in the trunk of his car.
Prosecutors say he, Rivera and some friends went to a nightclub Nov. 24, 2018, to celebrate Rivera’s birthday. Akin and Rivera left the club at about 1 a.m., and on the way home, Rivera confided to her sister that they had been fighting about their relationship.
“The forensic evidence tells us that Autumn was stabbed nine times in the front and back of her torso, that the attack began on one side of the living room and ended on the other, that Autumn fought and tried to escape,” prosecutor Amy Petri Beard said in court.
According to an arrest warrant, Akin told investigators he killed Rivera in Thornton but did not remember how because he had “blacked out.” He then drove to his mother’s home in Wyoming.
