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Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 October 2010
A juvenile court today refused to grant bail to an American teenager charged with murder after his mother was found dead at a resort in western India, a prosecutor said.
The court sided with police, who argued Joncarlo Patton, 16, should not be set free given the seriousness of the alleged offence, said prosecutor NK Sankhala.
Patton was arrested at an airport on 13 August, a day after his mother, Cindy Iannarelli from Cecil, Pennsylvania, was found with her throat slit at a resort in the town of Osian, in Rajasthan state.
Police have formally charged the teenager with murder and destruction of evidence. Patton denies the charges.
Patton's father, the University of Pittsburgh business associate professor G . Richard Patton arrived in India over the weekend. He attended court proceedings in Jodhpur, and the judge granted his request to meet his son in the juvenile home.
Sankhala said pretrial proceedings against Patton would be held on 11 October.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Patton is accused of attacking his mother with a knife on 12 August and then dumping her body on a sand dune near the resort, said Manish Vyas, Patton's attorney.</span>
Police say he then washed his bloodstained clothes and changed into fresh ones before leaving for the airport in a taxi. Patton's clothes were later discovered by police, but no knife has been found.
Police Superintendent Girdhari Lal Sharma, who questioned Patton soon after his mother's death, <span style="font-weight: bold">said the teenager had attacked his mother because he was traumatised by his parents' divorce and wanted them to get back together</span>.