Pensacola, Fla.
Two Florida boys were convicted last week of beating their sleeping father to death with a baseball bat, and torching their house to cover the crime. Prosecutors said the boys committed the murder at the urging of a family friend, Ricky Chavis, a convicted child molester who was sexually involved with Alex King, 13. Alex and his brother Derek, 14, confessed to killing their father, Terry King, but then recanted and said Chavis had actually committed the killing. Alex said he had lied to protect Chavis because he loved him. The jurors, who convicted the boys of second-degree murder, said they believed that Chavis had killed King, but that the boys had helped. In an earlier trial, Chavis was found not guilty, and prosecutors were widely criticized for trying him and the boys separately. “It’s too bad they couldn’t have all been tried together,” said forewoman Lynn Schwarz. “That might have been a fairer trial.”
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