BOULDER, Colo. -- Telling him he played a major part in a "horrendous, horrific event," a judge sentenced a teen who helped his friends bury a 52-year-old mother to a work release program.

Jared Guy, 19, pleaded guilty in August to a charge of evidence tampering. He was accused of helping his friends, in two separate attempts, dump the body of Linda Damm, of Lafayette, Colo.

Her decomposing body was found Feb. 28 in the trunk of her car, which was parked in her garage. Authorities said she had been dead for several weeks.

In court on Friday, Guy said that he was sorry for what he did. His attorneys argued that he should only be given probation because he played a minor role. But the judge said it was too horrific a crime to take lightly and Guy had plenty of opportunity to tell police about what happened.

Damm had been missing for a month before she was discovered by police. Officers were called to the home by neighbors who had complained that Damm wasn't around and her daughter was hosting rowdy parties.

Defense attorneys said that Guy is a good person who made really bad decisions. The defense contended that Guy has a bad case of attention deficit disorder and that he's easily swayed by others.

The judge didn't buy the argument and said he wondered how Guy could be so desensitized to what he did.

Besides six months in the work release program, where he will have to report to jail at night and leave in the day for work, Guy was also sentenced to three years of probation and six months of home detention.

An autopsy revealed Damm died from multiple stab wounds. Bryan Grove, 18, and Damm's daughter, Tess, 15, were arrested after the body was discovered. Grove was charged with killing Linda Damm.

Both are being tried as adults.

As part of the plea deal, Guy will be required to testify against Damm and Grove if their cases go to trial.

A police detective said Grove told him he "lost it," just before he knocked his girlfriend's mother unconscious and stabbed her repeatedly.

During a pretrial hearing, Lafayette police Detective Scott Robinson testified that Grove said he and Linda Damm were arguing when she told him if her daughter hadn't been born, a black guy -- referring to Grove -- wouldn't be hanging around the house. That's when Grove told Robinson he "lost it."

Damm was stabbed a total of 18 times in the neck and mouth, according to an autopsy.

According to an arrest affidavit, Guy said that he helped his best friend and "brother" Brian try to bury Damm's body. They tried to first dump her in an Erie landfill but their car got stuck in the mud so they turned around, he said. They then tried to bury her in a cemetery near Guy's high school, but they had not dug the shallow grave deep enough and there was a visible hump where she was buried, the affidavit said.

The teens worried that the body would be discovered so they dug the body back up and stuffed it in the back of her station wagon, which they parked in the garage.

Guy was arrested the night of his winter dance at Standley Lake High School, when he said he had planned to propose to his girlfriend.

He told detectives that he was just trying to help Grove and had tried to convince Grove to go to the police. The two are very close and call each other "brother." Both were adopted by Boulder County families from an orphanage in India.

Just before the slaying Guy was awarded the Metropolitan Mayors and Commissioners Youth Award by the Boulder County commissioners for overcoming adversity and for serving as a role model to other students