So why DO "good" kids go bad?
PattyC
"McLaughlin said that the senseless murders of Dartmouth professors Half and
Susanne Zantop, carried out by two good students for nothing more than a wad
of cash, have left him convinced there is a ''widespread sense of nihilism''
gaining hold among young people."
With that (plus incredible events like Columbine, and more minor events like
three of my nephew's classmates were just arrested for selling heroin) in
mind, I am going to post a write up on the young men in Pittsburgh who
killed one of their cronies. I really think it seems we sure can't rely on
the part about people coming from good families/neighborhoods anymore.
PattyC
--
???
Pittsburgh, PA
Suspects in killing known for muscling
Sunday, April 14, 2002
By Dennis B. Roddy, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Tom Harrington can still remember Craig Elias, all 250 pounds of him,
glowering at him across the bar at a party earlier this year.
{Related Coverage-Wecht says Jones suffocated before ending up in river}
Elias and his regular companion, Jared Lischner, had gotten into several
confrontations with members of Harrington's fraternity. They had thrown
students around, pushed Harrington into a table, and now, Elias was
promising worse.
"He said, 'If you look at me the wrong way again, I'm going to cut your
throat,' " Harrington said.
The threat was neither new nor rare, say Duquesne University students. Elias
and Lischner cut a wide swath across the campus, shoving students into
walls, punching those who offended them, going to war with two of the
school's fraternities. Once, Harrington returned to his freshman dorm to
find the 6-foot-2-inch, 235-pound Lischner single-handedly fighting a group
of students until the battle spilled into the lobby of St. Ann Hall.
"I told my girlfriend, 'Either they're going to get killed in a fight or
they're going to kill somebody,' " Harrington said.
Police say it was the latter.
Lischner and Elias, Duquesne football players raised in Mt. Lebanon, and a
third young Mt. Lebanon man, Jared Henkel, are accused of kidnapping two
men, beating them and killing one in a dispute over drug money they believed
was stolen from a safe at a house in Mount Washington. Elias was charged
with drug dealing as well.
The apparent victim of the homicide was Andrew Jones, 19, who police believe
was also dealing drugs. Henkel's younger brother, Matthew, told police he
and Elias wrapped Jones' body in chains and dumped it into the Ohio River
near Steubenville, Ohio. Divers recovered Jones' body there Friday.
The case has stunned many residents of Mt. Lebanon and opened a window into
violent crime by suburban youths who were once considered more likely to
watch vicious acts on television than act them out. But Elias, Lischner and
Henkel had long ago established a pattern of strong-arm conduct, say some
who knew them.
History of violence
As long ago as 1997, Lischner was arrested for attacking a student from a
rival high school, breaking the boy's nose and teeth.
Henkel has been picked up twice for assault, once in 1997 after he and a
group of other boys got off a Port Authority trolley in Bethel Park and set
upon a passenger, stealing his gold chain.
In an era in which narcotics-related violence has been associated with inner
cities, the publicity surrounding a trio of young men from the suburbs
accused of murder has some observers scratching for answers.
"The stereotype of Mt. Lebanon is the spoiled rich kid driving around in a
new car when they turn 16," said Rob Keenan, a Mt. Lebanon lawyer and
president of the school board. Keenan also points out that Mt. Lebanon's
students have a long history of volunteering for charities, and its
graduates regularly place in top colleges. Lischner was a standout football
player. Elias was a member of the high school's National Honor Society and
won top awards for both scholarship and athletic prowess.
"I don't know how to explain any kind of conduct like this," Keenan said.
Police believe one explanation is drugs.
Months before Jones vanished, police say, Jared Henkel turned up as a
supplier to another Mt. Lebanon man caught in a drug sting. At that point,
the names of Lischner and Elias also turned up, reportedly as young men who
would provide Henkel with muscle and intimidation.
"They were extremely vicious and extremely violent," said Mt. Lebanon police
Chief Thomas Ogden, whose force arrested Henkel in a drug buy last year.
"They were beating on other drug dealers."
On one occasion, police believe, Lischner and Elias took a Polaroid photo of
a beating victim as a trophy.
Somewhere in their dealings, they became friends with Andrew Jones, a young
man from Pittsburgh who was well known to police.
At the time of his disappearance, Jones was facing trial for an incident at
a city pizzeria. Police had accused him of attacking Sean Quinn, a young man
he had never met, as Quinn sat quietly in the restaurant.
Wearing the wrong shirt
According to police, Jones walked up behind Quinn and bashed him on the head
because Quinn was wearing a sweat shirt from Canevin High School.
"Apparently [Jones] had some dealings with some other Canevin kids when he
was traveling with his band of marauders," said Quinn's father, Patrick
Quinn. "My son was philosophical about it. He figured he was never going to
see this kid again. I said, 'No, you won't, because this kid's either going
to be dead or in jail.' "
Court documents show that Mt. Lebanon detectives, working through an
Allegheny County task force, persuaded another alleged dealer, Steven
Ottney, who lived one block away from Henkel, to arrange a buy July 24.
Three months earlier, undercover police had met Ottney behind the Jamestown
Apartments in Mt. Lebanon to make a drug buy from him. A red Chevrolet sedan
pulled up, and, police reports said, Ottney informed the undercover police
that his supplier had arrived.
The car was driven by Jared Henkel. He was with several other young men
police could not immediately identify.
Ottney was later arrested on a trio of drug charges and agreed to make an
undercover buy that led to Henkel's arrest.
After arresting Henkel, police encountered Elias and Lischner at Henkel's
preliminary hearing.
"They showed up, we believe, with the intention of intimidating our
witnesses," Ogden said. "They were out in the hallway glaring at the
witnesses, blocking the way."
Ottney's mother, Kathryn Ottney, confirmed that her son had been intimidated
but that police had ordered Lischner and Elias from the magistrate's
building before the hearing got under way.
Surreptitious drug trade
The suburban drug trade is not going to attract the regular open-air markets
and smash-and-grab crimes that users often rely on to raise money for drugs,
said Alfred Blumstein, an expert in criminology at Carnegie Mellon
University. With heroin selling at $20 a bag, suburban youths are able to
afford it.
"They're going to have the money and they're going to operate much more
surreptitiously," Blumstein said.
"Entrepreneurship is part of suburban life," Blumstein said. "But in that
industry, violence tends to be the method of dispute resolution because you
can't go to court."
Elias is a member of the National Honor Society. Of the trio charged in
Jones' murder, he seemed to be the least likely. Henkel and Lischner had
been known to police years before.
Jared Henkel had been arrested twice on assault charges. He was given
probation for the 1997 incident in which he and a group of boys were accused
of attacking another youth at the Washington Junction T station in Bethel
Park.
A year after completing that probation, he was again accused of assault.
Lischner entered the legal system in 10th grade, at 16. He was charged with
trailing a group of students to a parking lot near the Mt. Lebanon High
School athletic field after a Mt. Lebanon-Upper St. Clair soccer game in
1997.
A fight erupted and Lischner was accused of breaking the nose and teeth of
an Upper St. Clair student, requiring several stitches. The case was taken
to the Allegheny County juvenile division, where Judge H. Patrick McFalls
Jr. gave him probation after he pleaded guilty to simple assault.
Allegheny County juvenile probation figures don't point to any uptick in the
number of children from affluent suburbs being referred for violent crimes,
according to figures from 1999, the latest available.
But violent crime in the suburbs also isn't a new phenomenon, even if it's
unusual enough to perplex many who live there.
In this case, the parents of both Elias and Lischner declined comment, while
Bruce Henkel, father of Jared and Matthew, was glum. "I've got to be careful
what I say," said the elder Henkel, who has seen a steady stream of
reporters and gawkers go past his small jewelry shop on Beverly Road.
"Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?" he asked.
A few blocks away, on Washington Road, Allyson Madera, a Mt. Lebanon High
School graduate who knew Lischner, was perplexed. The football players, she
said, were more of a "preppy" group, less likely to be seen around drugs.
"It was sort of a shock," she said, "because people didn't think that would
happen in Mt. Lebanon."
