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CNN Live Today
Teen Brothers on Trial for Killing Father
Aired September 04, 2002 - 13:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Two teenage brothers are on trial in Pensacola, Florida, in the beating death of their father. The case is very unusual, with the twist worthy of a Hollywood plot -- as CNN's David Mattingly reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): From the beginning it was a crime almost impossible to believe, two young brothers, 13-year-old Derek King and 12-year-old Alex in November confessing to murdering their father with a baseball bat, then setting their house on fire in Ascambia County, Florida.
DEREK KING: I was afraid that he might wake up and see us, so I just kept on hitting him.
ALEX KING: Made contact with the forehead, knocked a hole in the forehead. You could see his brains.
MATTINGLY: The boys claimed they killed 40-year-old Terry King a single father and strict disciplinarian fearing punishment after they had recently run away. Their casual, seemingly remorseless behavior at the time seemed unusual to investigators.
JOHN SANDERSON, POLICE INVESTIGATOR, ASCAMBIA COUNTY, FLA.: For the most part they were pretty calm and then after the interviews they were horsing around a little bit and playing.
MATTINGLY: But what investigators didn't know was that even stranger twists would follow. Months later before a Grand Jury, the boys changed their story and implicated 40-year-old Ricky Chavis, a convicted child molester and friend of the family. Chavis, according to prosecutors, was romantically obsessed with young Alex. Defense attorneys for the boys claimed Chavis gained their confidence and manipulated them, convincing them to run away and take the blame after he was the one who allegedly wielded the bat.
MIKE ROLLO, ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENDANTS: Ricky told them that you are juveniles and you will remain juveniles and you will be tried as juveniles. And when they -- everything seems to go as planned until something happens that Ricky Chavis didn't think would happen. The State of Florida indicts a 12 and 13-year-old boy as adults.
MATTINGLY: But which story is true? Who sit he real killer when all now claim to be innocent? Prosecutors decided to present evidence against both the boys and Chavis, then let the jury sort it out. On Friday, it took just seven hours to reach a verdict in the case against Chavis but that verdict has been sealed and will remain unknown until the outcome in the murder and arson trials of brothers Derek and Alex. The boys are being tried as adults. They were key witnesses against Chavis but Chavis will not testify against them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you're called by the state to testify in this murder trial, do you intend to invoke your Fifth Amendment right to remain silent?
RICKY CHAVIS, DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.
MATTINGLY: Deciding in court Tuesday to invoke the Fifth Amendment, Chavis will remain silent as a Florida jury looks into the faces of two young boys in search of a brutal killer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
And the taped confessions of those two boys played to a jury today in Florida, and the jury may have to come to a conclusion that most people don't want to believe, that these two young boys were capable of killing their father.
PHILLIPS: Hey, you look at their faces: They're baby faces. No one wants to believe that. They could face life in prison.
MATTINGLY: They could face life in prison if found guilty. And that was one of the comments that was made by the defense attorney for Chavis at the time, that you look into what -- he used the word -- was "cherubim" faces -- it is impossible to believe this, yet a jury may have to.
PHILLIPS: What if all three are found guilty?
MATTINGLY: All three are found guilty, that means someone who did not commit this crime is going to prison for a very long time. So the juries are going to have to be very careful how they decide this. We already have one verdict; we don't know what it is because it is sealed. We'll have to see how all this plays out when we get that second verdict.
PHILLIPS: All right, David Mattingly, thank you.
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