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| In this undated photo provided by the Essendon Baseball Club, player Chris Lane wears his baseball equipment, in Australia. The Australian baseball player out for a jog in an Oklahoma neighborhood was shot and killed by three “bored” teenagers who decided to kill someone for fun, police said. Lane, who was visiting the town of Duncan where his girlfriend and her family lives, had passed a home where the boys were staying and that apparently led to him being gunned down at random, Police Chief Danny Ford said Monday, Aug. 19, 2013. |
DUNCAN, Okla.
(AP) -- Prosecutors filed charges against three teenagers Tuesday after
police said the boys randomly targeted an Australian baseball player as
he jogged and shot him in the back, killing him, to avoid the boredom
of an Oklahoma summer day.
Christopher Lane,
22, of Melbourne, died Friday along a tree-lined road on Duncan's
well-to-do north side. Two teenagers, 15- and 16-year-olds from the
gritty part of the town, were charged with first-degree murder and
ordered held without bond.
A third, age 17,
was accused of being an accessory after the fact and with driving a
vehicle while a weapon was discharged. He said in open court "I pulled
the trigger," but the judge directed him to remain quiet and said
Tuesday was not the day to discuss the facts of the case.
The boy cried.
His bond was set at $1 million.
Police
Chief Dan Ford has said the boys had the simplest of motives. He said
in a variety of interviews that the 17-year-old had told officers that
they were bored and killed Lane for "the fun of it."
Meanwhile,
family and friends on two continents mourned Christopher Lane, who gave
up pursuit of an Australian football career to pursue his passion for
baseball, an American pastime. His girlfriend tearfully laid a cross at a
streetside memorial in Duncan, while half a world away, an impromptu
memorial grew at the home plate he protected as a catcher on his youth
team.
"We just thought we'd leave it," Sarah Harper said as she visited the memorial. "This is his final spot."
