Jake Eakin and Evan Savoie "Boys Next Door"
On Feb. 15, 2003, Craig Sorger, 13, was found murdered.
It was a chilling crime. He had been beaten and stabbed. The small town of Ephrata, Wash., was stunned when his two 12-year-old playmates were arrested and charged with his murder.
Despite their age, the judge decided they should be tried as adults, saying that, if guilty, the crime was so gruesome he doubted rehabilitation in the juvenile system was possible - and the community needed to be protected.
Evan Savoie and Jake Eakin are now among the youngest murder defendants ever to be tried as adults, but the two boys continue to insist they're innocent.
The boys hadn't spoken publicly until they sat down with Correspondent Vicki Mabrey last year.
When 60 Minutes II met Jake Eakin, he was small for his age -- 4 foot 10 inches, and 75 pounds. He turned 13 behind bars in November 2003, in the Grant County Youth Services Detention Center.
"I know I'm a kid," says Jake, who admits he's not ready to handle the courts and judges as an adult.
Evan Savoie, then 13, was Jake's best friend and also his co-defendant. He's grown 5 inches and gained 25 pounds since being locked up 14 months earlier.
"I was a lot shorter then, and it [my voice] was kind of girly," says Evan, who adds that he and Jake are the youngest kids in the detention center and the ones accused of committing the most serious crime.
So how did two boys just out of elementary school wind up charged with first-degree murder? It all began the afternoon of Feb. 15, 2003, when Lisa Sorger was home with her two sons.
More Info...
Christopher Simmons
State of Missouri v. Christopher Simmons
Case Facts: In early September 1993, Simmons then 17, discussed with his friends, Charlie Benjamin (age 15) and John Tessmer (age 16), the possibility of committing a burglary and murdering someone. On several occasions, Simmons described the manner in which he planned to commit the crime: he would find someone to burglarize, tie the victim up, and ultimately push the victim off a bridge. Simmons assured his friends that their status as juveniles would allow them to "get away with it." Simmons apparently believed that a "voodoo man" who lived in a nearby trailer park would be the best victim. Rumor had it that the voodoo man owned hotels and motels and had lots of money despite his residence in a mobile home park.
On September 8, 1993, Simmons arranged to meet Benjamin and Tessmer at around 2:00 a.m. the following morning for the purpose of carrying out the plan. The boys met at the home of Brian Moomey, a 29-year old convicted felon who allowed neighbor teens to "hang out" at his home. Tessmer met Simmons and Benjamin, but refused to go with them and returned to his own home. Simmons and Benjamin left Moomey's and went to Shirley Crook's house to commit a burglary.
The two found a back window cracked open at the rear of Crook's home. They opened the window, reached through, unlocked the back door, and entered the house. Moving through the house, Simmons turned on a hallway light. The light awakened Mrs. Crook, who was home alone. She sat up in bed and asked, "Who's there?" Simmons entered her bedroom and recognized Mrs. Crook as a woman with whom he had previously had an automobile accident. Mrs. Crook apparently recognized him as well.
Simmons ordered Mrs. Crook out of her bed and on to the floor with Benjamin's help. While Benjamin guarded Mrs. Crook in the bedroom, Simmons found a roll of duct tape, returned to the bedroom and bound her hands behind her back. They also taped her eyes and mouth shut. They walked Mrs. Crook from her home and placed her in the back of her mini-van. Simmons drove the can from Mrs. Crook's home in Jefferson County to Castlewood State Park in St. Louis County.
At the park, Simmons drove the van to a railroad trestle that spanned the Meramec River. Simmons parked the van near the railroad trestle. He and Benjamin began to unload Mrs. Crook from the van and discovered that she had freed her hands and had removed some of the duct tape from her face. Using her purse strap, the belt from her bathrobe, a towel from the back of the van, and some electrical wire found on the trestle, Simmons and Benjamin found Mrs. Crook, restraining her hands and feet and covering her head with the towel. Simmons and Benjamin walked Mrs. Crook to the railroad trestle. There, Simmons bound her hands and feet together, hog-tie fashion, with the electrical cable and covered Mrs. Crook's face completely with duct tape. Simmons then pushed her off the railroad trestle into the river below. At the time she fell, Mrs. Crook was alive and conscious. Simmons and Benjamin then Mrs. Crook's purse in to the woods and drove the van back to the mobile home park across from the subdivision in which she lived.
Her body was found later that afternoon by two fishermen. Simmons was arrested the next day, September 10, at his high school.
More Info...