Posted on 01/20/2007 12:29:06 AM PST by raccoonradio
A family that moved to Sudbury to put their kids in a “safe” school lost their straight-A son to a knife-slashing teen misfit yesterday in a crime that turned a haven for learning into a scene of numbing horror, officials said.
Prosecutors say the death of James F. Alenson, 15, allegedly at the hands of John Odgren, 16, in a bathroom at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School yesterday before the first bell, was a premeditated act by a troubled teen who will be tried as an adult.
“They had just moved there in September - they moved there to be in a safe place and so the kids could go to a good, safe school,” said the slain boy’s crying aunt, Julia Rossetti, in an interview.
“He was the sweetest boy. He would never hurt a fly. I just want people to know that he was a wonderful boy,” she said. Asked why another student would stab to death her nephew, whose family had recently moved from Natick, Rossetti said, “there is no reason.”
While the Alensons grieved behind closed doors, classmates of Odgren, who has Asperger’s syndrome, a developmental disorder, described a boy with a penchant for the macabre and an interest in knives and bombs.
Brianna Hogge, also a junior at L-S, said Odgren was “always asking how to get away with killing people and talking about how to make acid to make bombs. He was a really creepy kid.”
Police say Odgren dumped the bravado at the murder scene.
Odgren begged: “I don’t want him to die,” police said. Odgren, of Princeton, was waiting with school officials when police arrived.
He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in Framingham District Court on first-degree murder charges and was held without bail.
The morning murder at the sprawling high school sent parents rushing to rescue frightened children. Several teens spoke of seeing Odgren emerging from the boys’ restroom with blood on his hands and remorse on his lips.
Katie Crowley of Framingham, a junior at L-S, said a friend at the school saw the boy they knew only as “Jack” stumble into a classroom smeared with blood just after the attack, saying, “It was an accident, it was an accident.”
Two Lincoln-Sudbury High juniors said Odgren often wore a trench coat to school and talked about murder, forensics and how he wanted to make an acid bomb.
At his arraignment at Framingham District Court, prosecutor Daniel Bennett said, “The timing of the stabbing strongly suggests that Mr. Odgren planned this premeditated murder and took Mr. Alenson’s life.”
Odgren, a tall, thin boy, appeared in court dressed in a paper jumpsuit with paper shoes. He did not speak during the short arraignment. His parents, Paul and Dorothy Odgen, sat quietly in court, clutching their hands. They left the building without commenting.
Police said Odgren stabbed the younger boy first in the abdomen and then in the heart at a little after 7 a.m., Bennett said. There were also cut wounds on Alenson’s neck. Alenson was rushed to Emerson Hospital in Concord, where he was pronounced dead at 8:12 a.m
Bennett described the weapon as a large knife and said Odgren brought the knife to school.
According to an affidavit filed by Sudbury Police Officer Nathan Hagglund, he arrived at the school to find school personnel, including a nurse, gathered around Alenson’s “lifeless body,” his shirt covered with blood. School staff told police the suspect was in another room with school officials, Hagglund wrote.
Bennett asked Judge Paul Healy to order Odgren held without bail, but defense lawyer Jonathan Shapiro said his client needed to be in a psychiatric hospital to determine if he is competent to stand trial.
Shapiro said Odgren has Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, and is a special education student. “He’s on a number of medications and he’s under the care of many physicians,” said Shapiro.
>>a developmental disorder, described a boy with a penchant for the macabre and an interest in knives and bombs.
Brianna Hogge, also a junior at L-S, said Odgren was “always asking how to get away with killing people and talking about how to make acid to make bombs. He was a really creepy kid.”
Public school, nice place for him...
>> “It was an accident, it was an accident.”
He fell right onto the knife...
>>Odgren often wore a trench coat to school and talked about murder, forensics and how he wanted to make an acid bomb.
Columbine, Massachusetts
>> “He’s on a number of medications and he’s under the care of many physicians,” said Shapiro.
Excuse: "off his meds"
Immediate lethal injection.
Department of Repetitive Reiteration.
Is there any such thing as a safe government school anymore?
Prayers for this poor kid's family.
Not sure what to pray for the murderer's family; they obviously didn't do enough to squelch their son's murderous fantasies.
Nice of the media to push out the insanity defense early on in the article, instead of just waiting to quote the defense attorney at the end. On a side topic, I've always disliked the ruling, "Not guilty by reason of insanity." I've always thought that, in a way, it allows them off the hook without a measured amount of responsibility. While they might not have had control of their faculties, they were ultimately responsible for whatever deaths occurred.
I think it should be a guilty ruling, and as such, carry more heft in the longterm removal from society of murderers. Insane? Fine, don't put them in regular prison, but if they aren't sane enough to live without hurting people, then they should be locked away in a mental facility for the same duration as a regular sentence would carry.
Ironic that the killer often spoke of wanting to make a bomb, killing someone, had an inordinate interest in knives...and yet nobody thought he was dangerous. This seems to be a familiar theme with kids who suddenly turn homicidal. Everyone excuses odd or morbid behavior as 'he's weird', etc., and no one does anything until it's too late. School should be held liable, also the state of MA...they mainstream handicapped kids, those on meds, etc. as often as possible...(cheaper than special schools.) In most cases, it works out, but this time, obviously not. This is a tragedy for everyone.
Kids who mistakenly bring a small knife to school to cut an apple are almost thrown in prison these days. This kid, who talked openly about mayhem and murder, was never considered suspicious?? Hard to believe. The system is broken somewhere.
..."Kids who mistakenly bring a small knife to school to cut an apple are almost thrown in prison these days. This kid, who talked openly about mayhem and murder, was never considered suspicious?? Hard to believe. The system is broken somewhere"...
Consolidated schools are too large..They are out of control. We would not want to live in a war zone, but, many of us, unknowingly send our kids to one every day of the week..Smart, intelligent kids, like this 15 year old victim will always be targets because of envy..Asperger's is no excuse..
"Shapiro said Odgren has Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, and is a special education student."
Mainlining misfits takes another victim.
Of lead, by .45 ACP.
Socialization?
Consolidated schools are too large..They are out of control. We would not want to live in a war zone, but, many of us, unknowingly send our kids to one every day of the week..Smart, intelligent kids, like this 15 year old victim will always be targets because of envy..Asperger's is no excuse..
In the school district in which we live, there are about 350 students in junior high and high school. There are bomb threats, lock downs, drug searches, you name it. I blame a lot of this on the justice system and parents, usually only one parent, lack of responsibility. Bring back the board.
When John Odgren is released from prison, I hope the father is awaiting with a sniper rifle.
That's my 2 cent's worth of amateur, pseudo psycho-analysis, the rest of my opinion is simple ... kill the little bastard.
They should have taken Mr. Odgren out behind the school sat him down in the grass and shot him in the head. Faster and easier on everyone involved.
Excellent post and I completely agree with you.
I'm betting that is not true. Would love to see all the 'files' (medical, gov't, school, police) on this kid.
carolyn
"Mainstreaming". Just another way of feeding the NEA/MTA-run diploma factories.
The factory gets so much a student.
For what it's worth - Lincoln and Sudbury along with adjacent Concord rate near the top on the list of the towns with the most wealth and most 'exclusive'in the Boston area - they are as 'progressive' as it is possible to be without living in a truly socialist country.
No, If you follow how the system is used by the powers that be it is easy to believe.
350 doesn't strike me as very large. My graduating class was close to 300 and I was pretty sure we were one of the smaller schools.
Remember, this is an evil person who was obsessively looking for a way to get away with murder.
"often spoke....yet nobody thought he was dangerous"
I'm sure the parents would have screamed that people were taking away his "free speech" rights were anyone to have brought it up. These things almost never happened years ago because parents parented and taught their kids right from wrong(and without giving their children all the medications to keep them "manageable").
Just when did THIS liberal clap-trap start?
If you're "smart" and capable enough to select, secretly transport, and then use a weapon in the murder of an innocent person, like most criminals - this punk probably IS a bit crazed.
That's even MORE reason to put him away for life, or even better - fry him. Unfortunately, that won't happen in most states, and it most especially won't happen in The Peoples Republic of massatwoshits.
Special Ed is way different then when we were kids. When I was in school it was mostly Downs kids. While they still have the classes with Downs Syndrome, they also have seperate classes where the kids are emotionally disturbed, many with "Anger management" issues. I had a friend who taught such kids, we would argue all the time about putting kids with what I thought severe emotional issues and trying to mainstream. The school actually had a padded room for these kids to go into when they were having fits. Putting them in school is not a way of helping them, it's just window dressing and it's dangerous for the other children.
It could be that "on his meds" is the problem. Psychiatric drugs are given too easily. Sometimes they cause more problems than they solve, especially in teens.
I was one of those kids with anger issues thank you very much
I have to admit, that has a certain appeal. Not so much for the method, but for the message that would be sent to others.
Did you break your teachers arm with a chair? Did you attack one of the assistant principals with a pipe and break ribs? Did you punch the woman assistant principal in the stomach? I worked in the school, these 3 incidences happened in one school year with the special ed kids in the middle and high school.
So your asnwer rather then help them is to throw them under the bus? Yeah thats right screw the kids who needs help lets
just only care about the good little boys and girls
Who said anything about throwing them under the bus? Mainstreaming extremely violent children is a crap shoot. Do they need help, they sure do. But explain to me how putting a child in a frustrating situation helps them. When my son was in the 3rd. grade he had a classmate that would go off at any minute. One time the teacher asked the class to turn to a specific page in their text book, not a paper back but a large hard cover book. The child was on the wrong page and when the teacher pointed this out, the picked the book up and threw it at her. This is ok with you? When my son came home and told me what happened I didn't believe him, I thought he was exaggerating. Saw his teacher the next day and she explained the mainstreaming to me. So you tell me, the other 16 kids in the class have to sit there and hope that the next time the kid freaks out and throws a chair they don't get hit with it? Hello, how much time is taken away from the learning from the time of the outburst to taking control of the situation to getting the help needed to remove the child and then getting the rest of the kids on task again? I am sure the parents of this dead child could make a valid argument against mainstreaming violent kids.
Asperger's does not make one a "misfit". Nor does it probably have anything to do with this boy's problems. That's like saying he had strep throat and implying it had something to do with making him a murderer.
What a horrible thing to say. An Asperger's child is no more likely to be violent than any other segment of the population.
I teach and the number of these Aspberger kids has skyrocketed in recent years. I don't mean to be cruel, but the best way to describe them is that they act very much like the disturbed homeless folks you encounter in most cities. Most have no business being in a public school and are a disruption. Yet, as is typical in public ed, the rights of one trumps the rights of many.
>>Immediate lethal injection.
Not in Mass.--no death penalty (though we passed a referendum on it but the Legislature shot it down...)
OR
it was because of the meds
Yes. To quote Frank Zappa, It can't happen here. it can't
happen here. I am telling you my dear...that it CAN happen
here...and the big shock on talk radio now is, yes, we could see this happening in some inner-city school but in a posh
suburb? With, as you say "progressive" schools...
Yes...
Though I'm saying they may give the "off his meds" excuse. Remember the guy who was bipolar or something, on the plane in Miami (IIRC); shot to death after he started going nutzo on the plane. He was ..."off his meds". Thus it becomes and excuse for something like this: oh, he hadn't taken his meds, so...
Just did a quick search: yup.
>>A passenger, Mary Gardner, told WTVJ in Miami that the man ran frantically down the aisle from the rear of the plane, arms flailing, and that the woman accompanying him said that her husband was bipolar and had not taken his medication, according to The Associated Press.
I can understand the desire to be an advocate for mentally disabled children; however, your statement is wrong. It has been noted that people with Asperger Disorder are predisposed to violent behavior. But beyond the generality, this particular boy, John Odgren, was known to have problems with violent thoughts.
Another article in today's Boston Herald says, in part:
"Yeshaya said Odgren “reminded me of someone who would do something like this. He’s a victim of his own character.”"
There it is! The V word! He's a "victim"! The real victim
is going to be buried soon at the age of 15.
Just mainstreaming a child with severe emotional problems for the sake of mainsteaming is a time bomb. There is nothing wrong with it after it has been proven that they can handle the stress of it. Unfortunately there are children with severe problems, and my heart goes out to them and their families, but should the other children be sitting ducks? Is that fair to them? Wouldn't a small classroom with more than one teacher who is experienced with these kids be a better fit for them. A teacher who is trained to see the signs of an outburst and neutralize it before it becomes out of control? You are asking an awful lot of people who are not trained in how to handle these kids. You have a room full of CHILDREN you are responsible for, in the meantime you have to keep an eye on one child that could explode at any given moment. The child in my son's class would go off on the most simplistic thing. In the long run, it did him no good, they are high school aged now and he has been in and out of school since elementary. Right now he is out of school, he justed gets bounced in and out. Oh and by the way, when my son and he were in class together, he really took a liking to my son. Many times at school functions I took him in my group, I wasn't frightened of him, he had problems he couldn't help, he will still come up to me and give me a hug when I see him around town. That does not justify putting other children at risk. I have been around more than my share of boys with anger management issues, it's both sad and scary.
It has been noted that people with Asperger Disorder are predisposed to violent behavior.
As you know, if you are familiar with the syndrome or have read up on it, that is not backed up by studies.
"An Asperger's child is no more likely to be violent than any other segment of the population."
Are they more likely to hold back the rest of the class?
As far as the student in question though, as with any child, any ideations of violence should have been taken quite seriously.
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