Friday, July 21, 2000
Teens' impossible dream
Police say brother, sister tried to kill adoptive parents
By Sheila McLaughlin and Reid Forgrave
The Cincinnati Enquirer
One of the Bocooks' dogs wait in front of their burned-out mobile home.
(Steven M. Herppich photos)
| ZOOM |
|
CLAY TOWNSHIP — A yearning for the impossible — to live with their biological mother — drove a 14-year-old girl and her 15-year-old brother to attempt murder, police said Thursday.
Three days after the teens' adoptive parents — their great-aunt and great-uncle Gladys and Charles Bocook — crawled from their burning double-wide mobile home on rural Sicily Road about midway between Mount Orab and Sardinia, police for the first time spoke publicly about a motive in the case.
The story they told was of a couple who gave their children whatever they wanted — a go-cart, bicycles, a basketball hoop — only to have the youths turn against them.
“They took care of these kids,” said Detective Steve Alexander, of the Highland County Sheriff's Office. “Basically, they gave them everything.”
“I just cannot understand why the kids did this. A lot of stuff doesn't surprise me anymore. But this surprises me.”
The teens, jailed at Ross County Juvenile Detention Center in Chillicothe, face a hearing July 31 in Highland County Juvenile Court to determine whether they will be tried as adults on charges of aggravated arson and attempted murder.
Mr. Bocook, 67, who dragged his wife to safety, was treated for smoke inhalation and minor burns and released from a local hospital on Tuesday. Mrs. Bocook, 52, remains in University Hospital, where she is recovering from smoke inhalation and second- and third-degree burns to her back and left arm.
Remains of the burned-out mobile home.
| ZOOM |
|
From her hospital bed Thursday, in a voice raspy from breathing the smoke that engulfed her bedroom, Mrs. Bocook wondered why the children she adopted eight years ago would try to kill her and her husband.
“I just want to know why they did it,” she said in a whisper. “I'm hurt by the way they did it. They even took my car.”
Police said the teens did not have juvenile court records and said they had never been called to the mobile home.
Police said the teens began laying plans for the Bocooks' deaths Saturday, after children's services workers in Vinton County removed the two from their biological mother's McArthur, Ohio, home. Detective Alexander said there were allegations of abuse during the teens' two-week visit with their mother, Melody Workman.
“That screwed them up from getting adopted by mom and her new husband, and they knew this,” the detective said.
“The kids figured if the place was gone and (the Bocooks) were gone, they wouldn't have to worry about going back.”
Saturday, the boy allegedly filled a pancake syrup bottle with gasoline from the Bocook's garage and hid it there. The teens then decided they would kill the Bocooks on Tuesday, Detective Alexander said, recalling the boy's statement to police.
On the night of the fire, the boy went to bed at 9 p.m. after telling his sister to wake him when the Bocooks were asleep.
About 1 a.m., after calling their mother to tell them about their plan to kill the Bocooks and “that they were on their way,” the girl woke her brother, Detective Alexander said.
“(Mrs. Workman) told them, "Don't do it,' but she never called police or anybody,” he said, adding that the mother is under investigation for failing to report a crime and for later helping dispose of the Bocook's car. Mrs. Workman could not be reached Thursday.
While the girl waited with the car keys by the Bocook's 1993 Oldsmobile 88, her brother retrieved the bottle of gasoline from the garage, the detective said.
From outside the mobile home, he squirted the flammable liquid into his bedroom window and into that of his sister. Then, he lit a gasoline-soaked sheet, which he hung out one of the windows to serve as a wick.
As the trailer started to burn, the two teens sped off in the Bocook's car. With the 15-year-old boy at the wheel, they drove nearly two hours until they reached their mother's house, Detective Alexander said.
From there, Mrs. Workman and her husband helped the teens abandon the car on a back road, the detective said.
Throughout the night, Highland County deputies called the teens' relatives and issued a bulletin to police in Ross and Vinton counties that they were looking for the teens and the car.
When business hours opened Tuesday, the teens showed up with Mrs. Workman at the office of a Logan, Ohio, lawyer, who had heard authorities were looking for them. Mrs. Workman was there to discuss whether she could adopt the teens back, even though her parental rights had been severed, Detective Alexander said.
The lawyer persuaded thethree to go to police. Accompanied by their mother, the teens turned themselves in to the Vinton County Sheriff's Office at 11:30 a.m.
Mrs. Bocook said she doesn't know much about the allegations against the teens — only what she heard on the news.
She said she and her husband adopted the children under tragic circumstances in 1992. At the time, the teens' biological father was jailed — “he tried to kill the family with a gun,” Mrs. Bocook said.
She said the family's relationship with Mrs. Workman has been strained since then.
“It's a long story,” she sighed, declining to go into further detail. “It's a long story.”
Teens' impossible dream
Boaters find less sewage in river
Pipe keeps raw sewage from river
Serial bank robberies alleged
Bush plans public rally
Loyalty is near top of Bush's VP list
Accused mother, 16, sobs in court
Clubhouse gutted, but pool to reopen
Driver gets 10 years in teacher's death
'Fly Jock' show free at Aronoff
Former OSU star Schlichter indicted
Jury: Hooters must pay $275K
Long-lost sister becomes very best friend
Petey: A life not forgotten
GET TO IT
Good ideas for kid's play
Mother's method makes kids work
Pig Parade: Periodic Pig
Who should be cast away?
Audit raps Lebanon for finances
Boy, 16, charged with murder
Cancer Society's resale store needs volunteers
DiGiuro slaying to grand jury
In the Schools
Kids learn safety rules at this camp
Ky. near top in immunizing tots
'Michael Richards Show' a shambles?
Resnick foes win decision
Taft, school-reform group meet
The postman always sings twice? No, but . . .
Witness in fatal shooting recants
