Dr. Craig Latham, an expert in threat assessment and a
former U.S. Secret Service consultant, said the 16-year-old boy is a chronic
marijuana smoker with "offensive" and "alarming" things scrawled on his bedroom
wall. But he said the boy's culture of trench coats and
hate-filled graffiti is not an indicator of a willingness to be violent. "In my clinical opinion, he would not represent a threat to
public safety if he were released on bail," Dr. Latham said. Juvenile Court Judge Bettina Borders said she will rule next
week whether the boy, whose name the newspaper is withholding because he is a
juvenile, should be allowed bail while awaiting trial. Defense attorney Donald A. Brisson asked the judge to
consider putting the boy on home arrest, as other judges have done for
18-year-old co-defendants Eric McKeehan and Amylee Bowman. Assistant District Attorney Raymond P. Veary argued that
releasing the boy would only send him back to the volatile environment from
which he came. Mr. Veary said the boy has a marijuana problem and a history
of alcohol abuse. And when police searched his mother's apartment last year,
they found a bedroom emblazoned with the words "kill everyone," "I hate the
world," and "everyone must die." They also found several shotgun shells and two bullets in
the bedrooms where he and Mr. McKeehan were living. Susan St. Hilaire, the boy's mother, said she will abide by
any probationary conditions the judge enacts if it means her son will come home
for the first time in six months. Prosecutors also expressed concern over the possibility the
boy stole a gun from a local business. That gun, which was reported stolen from
Vintage Motors last year, has not been recovered, and prosecutors suspect the
young man of the theft. Michael McKeehan, the 16-year-old co-defendant who reached a
plea agreement last week, told police after he was arrested that he saw his
friend with the stolen gun. But according to an application for a police complaint filed
by Sgt. Franklin Eccleston, Michael also told police he never saw the boy with
the gun. Dr. Latham said he believed the facts surrounding the
alleged theft to be "ambiguous," but Mr. Veary argued that it might have
provided a handgun to an "out of control" young man "who immersed himself in a
culture of violence and hate." That argument resonated with a judge last year, when the boy
was deemed too dangerous to be released, and it was upheld on appeal. Regardless of what Judge Borders rules next week, the boy's
trial is scheduled to begin in July. This story appeared on Page A1 of The Standard-Times on June 5, 2002.