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time with the lively teenager.

Peer pressure
    But Michael was much more streetwise than Sean. He burgled local houses and used the money he stole toexperiment with cocaine. In time, Sean accompanied him on these trips and acted as look-out. He too tried cocaine and found it made him feel invincible.
    Michael stole a gun during one robbery and Sean found that holding it made him feel omnipotent. The slender boy couldn’t right his mother’s failed marriages or bring in money to support the family – but with a gun in his hand he felt powerful for perhaps the first time in his life.

The murder plot
    Now, as his classmates talked about murder for cash, Sean said that he’d kill Cheryl’s abusive father for a thousand dollars. Later he, Rob and Cheryl talked together about the best way to do it and decided that Sean would stab James to death. Sean would throw a brick through the window of the house across the street to attract James’s attention then lunge at him with a knife. This first plan was clearly nonsensical for James Pierson was a muscular six foot two whilst Sean was a scrawny kid.
    Sean threw the brick but James didn’t come out to investigate so they talked some more and decided to kill him with one of his own guns.
    So Rob and Cheryl took Sean to Cheryl’s house and showed him James’s many weapons – but then they realised that the gun would be traced back to the Pierson household. After further talk they agreed that Sean would have to acquire his own gun.
    For the next few weeks, Sean said that he’d kill the man that night or the next day – but he always found an excuse not to do it. Rob kept asking him why nothing had happened and Cheryl begged him to act soon. Sean felt sorry for the pretty teenage cheerleader who often arrived at school with black and blue marks on her. He wanted to protect Cheryl and he wanted Rob to stop pressuring him. So when Michael gave him his rifle to look after, he went to a wooded area for target practice. Later he loaded it with five bullets and went to kill James Pierson, a man he’d never met.

The murder
    On 5th February 1986 Sean left his house in the early morning and made his way to the Pierson’s bungalow. He hid behind a tree and nervously watched their front door. At 6.20am it opened and James left the house and walked towards his truck. Sean raised the .22 rifle and shot him in the back of the head. James fell to the ground – but he was still moving. Overwhelmed with hatred, Sean raced up and fired another four shots into the dying man.
    The corpse lay there until Cheryl let the dog out. She saw her father lying on the path and ran to get a neighbour. At first everyone assumed he’d slipped on the ice – but when the police turned the body over, they saw all the blood and the expended bullet casings scattered around.
    Cheryl alternated between calmness and tears,which soon turned to nightmares. She believed in life after death, so feared that her father’s ghost might visit her. She said in the speech she wrote for his funeral that she believed one day she’d see him again.
    Sean went on to school as if nothing had happened and Rob gave him some of the thousand dollars he’d taken from James Pierson’s safe. Sean bought some jewellery for his new girlfriend, who he’d only been seeing for a week. Everyone thought that Sean was the same as usual and had no idea that he’d just become a killer. But soon afterwards he started to run a very high fever and took to his bed.

Arrest
    Meanwhile the police were looking for the killer. They heard that James Pierson was planning to cut his son Jimmy out of his will, so they started to lean on the teenager as a likely suspect. He finally told the police that it was Cheryl who’d wanted their physically- abu sive father dead. Cheryl had asked Jimmy to arrange a contract killing, but Jimmy had said that she should just endure the physical abuse as he had then get out when she was eighteen.
    The police went on