FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A Larimer County judge sentenced a 22-year-old man to decades in prison for beating his ex-girlfriend to death in February 2021.
Stephen McNeil admitted to killing Danielle Hopton the night of Feb. 6, 2021. Hopton was 18 years old.
During Friday's sentencing, Danielle Hopton's family and friends remembered her as a bright, outgoing young woman. They said she loved animals and that she volunteered at the Larimer County animal shelter weekly. She had dreams of becoming a teacher, her family said.
"I would give anything to have my daughter back," Justine Hopton, Danielle's mother, said Friday. "She loved to write. She loved to make cards. Every holiday, her cards were something I looked forward to."
"She should be at CSU right now getting close to finishing her degree," her mother added.
McNeil had originally been charged with first-degree murder. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and to a December 2020 assault charge from a domestic violence case that also involved Hopton.
In the 2020 assault case, McNeil pinned Hopton down on her bed and put his hands around her throat making it hard for her to breathe, according to court testimony Friday. As part of his bond conditions, McNeil was not supposed to have any contact with Hopton.
On the night of Feb. 6, 2021, McNeil and Hopton met up. The two rode in the car of one of McNeil's friends to an apartment complex off of Drake Street in Fort Collins, according to previous reporting. Hopton and McNeil got out of the car and McNeil then beat Hopton leaving her lying in the parking lot.
Hopton was found around 11 p.m., Fort Collins Police said in 2021. She was rushed to the Medical Center of the Rockies, where she died during emergency surgery.
During Friday's sentencing, Judge Stephen Jouard said that he struggled with accepting the plea agreement because he had seen the facts in the case.
"Mr. McNeil savagely beat Danielle Hopton to death, beating her to near unrecognizability," said Judge Jouard. "This is one of the most senseless cases that has come before the court."
Jouard did accept the plea agreement because he said that's what Hopton's family had agreed with.
McNeil was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the second-degree murder charge. He was sentenced to eight years on the 2020 assault case. That sentence will be served concurrently.
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