Woman Tied To Kayla Huff's Deadly Case Cuts Plea Deal — Walks Away With 7 Years, Not A Homicide Charge
Alayna Mason, 20, pleaded guilty Thursday to vehicle tampering and escape from custody — not to killing 16-year-old Kayla Huff. A judge gave her seven years. The first-degree murder and kidnapping charges tied to Huff's death are still pending and untouched by this deal.
Case at a glance
- Alayna Mason — sentenced
- Kayla Huff — victim
Next: Mason's next court appearance in the Huff case is scheduled for January 13 at 10:30 a.m., where the first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping charges against her remain pending and unresolved by Thursday's plea. Woods-Bloss's change-of-venue motion and the separate charges against Christopher Hull are also still working through Randolph County Court, with no trial date yet reported for any of the three.
What happened, in order
Investigators opened a case in May 2026 into the disappearance and death of Kayla Huff, a 16-year-old from Randolph County. Alayna Mason, now 20, was identified as a person connected to Huff's death and was arrested as part of that investigation.
Mason was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping — facilitating a felony, inflicting injury, terrorizing — tied directly to Huff's death. She also picked up separate charges along the way: stealing a motor vehicle, stealing a firearm, and escaping from custody while under arrest for a felony.
On Thursday, Mason appeared in Randolph County Court alongside co-defendant Christopher Woods-Bloss, 17. She pleaded guilty to counts tied to the vehicle and escape allegations — tampering with a motor vehicle, with an earlier stealing charge folded into it, and escape from custody. During the hearing, she spontaneously admitted to taking a police car when the investigation began back in May, KRCG reports.
A judge sentenced her to seven years on the tampering count and four years on the escape count. The sentences run concurrently, meaning Mason serves seven years total — not eleven.
Who's who in the Huff case
Kayla Huff was 16, a Randolph County teenager whose disappearance and death opened the investigation at the center of this case.
Alayna Mason, 20, is one of several people charged in connection with Huff's death. Randolph County Prosecuting Attorney Stephanie Luntsford is prosecuting the case and confirmed both the charges and Thursday's plea to local outlets.
Two other men are tied to the case. Christopher Woods-Bloss, 17, pleaded not guilty Thursday to his own charges and asked for a change of venue. Christopher Hull, 24, was due in court the same afternoon on charges including first-degree kidnapping, tampering with physical evidence, second-degree burglary and first-degree property damage.
What she pleaded guilty to — and what's still pending
What Mason pleaded guilty to Thursday addresses only two of the charges against her: tampering with a motor vehicle, a class D felony, and escape from custody while under arrest for a felony, a class E felony. A separate stealing charge was folded into the tampering count as part of the deal.
Those pleas do not touch the two most serious charges she's facing — first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping, both filed in connection with Huff's death. KMZU reports that Mason's guilty pleas do not resolve those charges, and that she still faces them.
In practical terms, Mason is locked into seven years for the vehicle and escape charges no matter what happens with the murder case. The murder and kidnapping charges remain open and unresolved, and they're on a separate track: her next court date is January 13 at 10:30 a.m.
What the charges actually mean
First-degree kidnapping — facilitating a felony, inflicting injury, terrorizing — is the language KRCG reports from the charging document. In plain terms, prosecutors are alleging the kidnapping helped carry out another crime, caused injury, and was meant to terrorize the victim. That charge, along with first-degree murder, is still pending against Mason and was not part of Thursday's plea.
Class D and E felonies, the two charges Mason did plead to, sit well below first-degree murder on the felony scale that applies here. Tampering with a motor vehicle, with the stealing charge folded in, became the class D count; escape from custody while under arrest for a felony is the class E count.
Running the sentences concurrently means both clocks start and stop together, so the four-year sentence is absorbed into the seven-year one. That's standard when a judge wants one number to control total time served, rather than stacking penalties end to end.
What's on the record so far
Randolph County Prosecuting Attorney Stephanie Luntsford confirmed to News-Press NOW and KMZU that Mason pleaded guilty to tampering with a motor vehicle and escaping custody — the only two charges addressed Thursday.
No defense attorney, family member, or outlet account quotes Mason directly about the charges she still faces. None of the coverage includes a statement from Huff's family on the plea or the sentence.
Woods-Bloss, through his not-guilty plea and motion for a change of venue, is signaling he intends to contest his charges in the Huff case rather than negotiate. Hull's case was moving through its own court date the same day.
What happens next
Mason's next court appearance in the Huff case is scheduled for January 13 at 10:30 a.m., where the first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping charges against her remain pending and unresolved by Thursday's plea. Woods-Bloss's change-of-venue motion and the separate charges against Christopher Hull are also still working through Randolph County Court, with no trial date yet reported for any of the three.
How this plays in court
A prosecutor building the homicide case against Mason still has to prove she caused or facilitated Huff's death. The tampering and escape pleas resolve collateral conduct that came up during the investigation — they carry no admission of guilt on the murder or kidnapping counts, and a judge cannot read anything into them when those charges are tried.
Defense attorneys for Mason could point to the limited scope of the plea deal as a sign the state wasn't ready, or wasn't able, to resolve the homicide charges by agreement — and argue that distinction to a jury later if the murder case goes to trial.
A jury weighing the first-degree murder and kidnapping charges will have to separate what Mason already admitted — taking a police vehicle, tampering with it, and escaping custody — from the separate and still-unproven question of her role, if any, in Huff's death. Those are different facts, different burdens, and different evidence.
Prosecutors will also need to account for how Mason's conduct lines up against the pending cases of Woods-Bloss and Hull, since any inconsistency in how the state describes each defendant's role could become fertile ground for cross-examination once the homicide charges reach trial.
- News-Press NOW: Alayna Mason pleads guilty to separate charges in Kayla Huff murder case, sentenced to 7 years
- KRCG: Alayna Mason pleads guilty; Christopher Woods-Bloss pleads not guilty in teen murder case
- KMZU.com: Alayna Mason pleads guilty to separate charges in Kayla Huff murder case, sentenced to 7 years