LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) — A 15-year-old boy and two of his friends are charged with killing the boy’s father as part of a plot police say would have ended with all of their parents dead.
“After murdering their parents, they planned to make a cross-country murder and crime spree,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Michal Holder said.
Steven Etheredge was returned to Florida from Alabama on Saturday and charged with murdering his father.
“He showed no remorse and told detectives he would do it again,” Holder said.
Jeremy Barman, 16, and Tony Headley, 15, were charged Friday with first-degree murder.
Investigators said the three skipped school Monday and went to Etheredge’s home in an upscale neighborhood in this city west of Tampa and waited for the father to return home.
While they were waiting, Etheredge told a New Hampshire girl he met on the Internet that he was about to kill his father and to call back in 45 minutes. When she called back, he told her they were wrapping the body with black plastic and were going to stuff it in the trunk. Investigators declined to identify the girl or say how they connected with her.
“They jumped Frank Etheredge. They wrestled him to the ground,” sheriff’s Col. Grady Judd said. “They choked him with what appeared to be a belt. They stabbed him at least twice in the face. … Then they wrapped him up in black plastic and put him in the trunk of his car.”
It wasn’t clear why the three stopped with Etheredge, who was divorced.
The boys returned to school Tuesday and began talking about the killing, said school spokesman Malcolm Kneale. Word got back to school officials, who launched an investigation.
Authorities obtained a search warrant for the Etheredge home and found the body in the trunk.
Police say Barman and Headley confessed to the killing, and Tampa television station WTVT reported that Etheredge gave police an incriminating statement.
“It’s almost crazy to think that someone like that has been in school with me for this long with thoughts like that in the head,” said April Neslund, president of the student council at George Jenkins High School, where the boys were students.
Etheredge’s grandmother said the boy showed up by himself Thursday at her home in Mobile, Ala., for a fishing trip with his grandfather. He didn’t have a driver’s license and was in his father’s van.
“He was going fishing with his grandfather Thursday, and they stopped by a bank to deposit a check for me. Some police walked up, asked him who he was and slapped the cuffs on him,” Eudessa Craig said. “I have no earthly idea what’s going on.”