Madyson Middleton was an 8-year-old girl from Santa Cruz, California whose mother reported her missing from their affordable housing apartment complex on July 25, 2015. Middleton had been lured into another apartment by a 15-year-old neighbor where she was strangled, sexually assaulted, and stabbed before being disposed of in a dumpster. The suspect, Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, was charged two days later as an adult after Middleton's body was found.
In 2019 the California Legislature passed, and in 2021 the state Supreme Court upheld SB 1391 which prohibits 14 and 15 year olds from being prosecuted as adults As a result, in April 2021, Gonzalez was sentenced to juvenile detention where he will be incarcerated until he turns 25 in 2024, whereas if he had been prosecuted as an adult he could have faced life in prison.