MILFORD — He came in through an unlocked back window at the house on Mohawk Trail. It was early in the morning, the sun wasn't up.

        Chris Alford awoke and heard noise. No one else was home. He asked, “Who's in the house?” No answer. Chris saw the open window. The intruder was no stranger to Chris. He was a friend — but he began choking him.

        “Why are you doing this to me?” Chris pleaded.

        Chris was dragged into the bedroom and bludgeoned seven or eight times in the head with a vacuum cleaner. Then the killer set fire to the house.

        Brian Sweeney, 36, a friend of Chris', knows the details of what happened in the house on Mohawk Trail. The killer told him.

        Chris Alford was 15 years old. When his body was found, his blond hair was blackened with blood. Part of his face was missing. At his funeral his casket was closed.

        Now, a year later, Angela Wilson walks from door to door in the neighborhood, a petition in hand. Ms. Wilson, Chris' mother, has collected 400 signatures; her goal is 1,000. She wants to change state law to increase the penalty for those who kill someone under the age of 18 in capital-offense cases. If they plead guilty to a capital offense — a crime that carries the death penalty — she doesn't want them to be eligible for parole. Ever.

        She has collected signatures from family and friends, from neighborhoods in both Milford and Goshen Township, from the corridors of the Clermont County Courthouse. She has sat down with a state representative at a Bob Evans Restaurant in Milford to make her case.

        She has no quarrel with the plea arrangement that sent her son's killer, Randy Mills, to state prison for life, with eligibility for parole after 50 years — Mr. Mills, after all, will be 80 years old when he's finally eligible. She and her family did not want to go through a trial and the uncertainty that can accompany years of appeals.

        Still, Mr. Mills' crime haunts Chris' family and friends. The thought of Mr. Mills regaining his freedom some day — however remote the possibility — chills them.

        Ms. Wilson's efforts are an anniversary tribute to her son's memory, and pay homage to a life unfulfilled, the promise of what could have been. She wants a change in state law to be her son's legacy.

        She has the ear of Ohio state Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Miami Township, while Don White, Clermont County prosecutor, is sympathetic to her cause.

        • • •

        “The question I've asked myself, how could someone who loves & cares about someone as I did Chris just do this for no rea son? This is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”

        — from a letter from Randy Mills to Brian and Joanie Sweeney.

        • • •

        Mohawk Trail is a quiet street of single-story brick homes, dating to the 1960s, a street less than a mile from this city's old business district, a much older grid where age and architecture suggest history and offer charm.

        This city of almost 6,300 had just one homicide in 2000 — Chris Alford's. It is a town where they had just one in 1999, and that was the first in 27 years. It is a county that's had just six or seven capital cases in the past dozen years or so.

        Brian Sweeney lived just a few doors down from Chris Alford when he befriended Chris shortly after the teen escaped a fire at his grandparents' home at the end of August 2000.

        Chris' father had died in 1988; his mother was having problems, so Chris had gone to live with his grandparents, Ms. Wilson's parents, on Mohawk Trail. Ms. Wilson spent a month in Florida after her husband's death, eventually returning to live with her parents and Chris.

        “Chris and I connected,” said Mr. Sweeney. “Chris was a pleasure to be around. He and I took up jogging together.”

        Ms. Wilson had trouble connecting with her son until the final three months of his life. She had trouble coping. Her son had a learning disability.

        “My nerves were shot and I thought it would be better just to go ahead and let grandma and grandpa take care of Christopher,” said Ms. Wilson. “I really didn't understand Christopher.”

        Mr. Mills, 29, lived a couple of streets over, and came into Chris' life two years ago. They saw a lot of one another, despite the age difference.

        Chris had an unusual hobby: He collected vacuum cleaners. His mother attributes the interest to when Chris was an infant. Chris was colicky, she said, and only the sound of a vacuum cleaner seemed to soothe the distressed infant.

        Mr. Mills pleaded guilty to killing Chris, then setting fire to the house to cover up the crime. He also pleaded guilty to kidnapping and aggravated burglary. The plea spared him from the death penalty, and no motive was ever suggested in court. Mr. Mills said he did it. He didn't have to say why.

        During the sentencing, Mr. Sweeney told the court how Mr. Mills had described the killing to him.

        Mr. Mills, who is serving his sentence at the Lebanon Correctional Institution, declined a request for an interview.

        • • •

        “ Every day I try to figure this out. You must believe me when I say I don't know why this happened ... I can never forgive myself for this.” — Mr. Mills in a letter to the Sweeneys.
       • • •

        Lacy Teegarden is 13 now. When asked about Chris Alford, she swallowed hard.

        “I was pretty close to him,” said Lacy, a neighbor. “I was shocked, I was afraid of anything else that would happen. I still think about him, even though it's been a year. He was somebody you could talk to, who would listen to you.” She swallowed again. “It's kind of hard ... I miss him. Very much.”

        Patsy Shilts walked out into her driveway on Mohawk Trail. She has lived in the neighborhood 25 years.

        “I miss him to this day,” said Ms. Shilts. “It just made me heartbroken.”

        Chris helped his grandparents decorate their home. He helped one neighbor who steadied her step with a cane. He'd help her clean and take out her garbage. Sometimes when Ms. Shilts took a walk, he'd catch up with her and keep her company.

        “I don't think people got over it,” said Ms. Shilts. “It's something that happens and you don't understand why. I still can't believe it. I miss him so bad.”

        David Piscopo, 15, was friends with Chris. He didn't think Mr. Mills capable of what he did; he had thought that Mr. Mills was Chris' uncle. David, like others, took the loss hard. Even the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks seemed to magnify the loss.

        “It just made me think of everyone's losses, just like I had,” said David. “I do know what a loss feels like. It hurts. It hurts bad.”

        Mr. Sweeney is a state parole officer. He knows about the consequences of crime and its effects on people. He sees it first-hand.

        “It happens all the time,” said Mr. Sweeney. “But you don't really appreciate it until it happens in a neighborhood where it's not supposed to happen. I lived across the street.”

        • • •

        State Rep. Schmidt said she is waiting for Ms. Wilson to deliver her petitions.

        “Angie Wilson is one of the most remarkable women I have ever met,” said Ms. Schmidt. “This is a woman who has had one of the most heart-wrenching things happen to her. The fact that she can get up in the morning and go on is just amazing.”

        Mr. White, the county prosecutor, said the inability for a capital case defendant to plead down to life without parole is “kind of a hole in the capital punishment statute.” He thinks it could be corrected legislatively, even without regard to age.

        Mr. White said he has talked with Ms. Schmidt and offered to get the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association involved in helping to draft a change in state law.

        “I think it'll go over,” said Mr. White of the possibility of changing the law. “I think it'd pass with flying colors. There's a lot of frustration with capital punishment right now.”

        Families of victims might be more inclined to agree with a plea bargain that included life without parole if it meant not facing the prospect of years of appeals.

        “I think this guy is going to stay there the rest of his life,” Mr. White said of Mr. Mills. “But it would have been nice if there were no option.”

        • • •

        “I don't feel the same anymore. Knowing what I've done, I don't feel like a person anymore ... I want to tell you why, but I cannot. I still don't know why.” — from Mr. Mills' letter to the Sweeneys.
       • • •

        Angela Wilson credits Mr. Sweeney and his wife, Joanie, with helping her reconnect with her son in the months before he died.

        “They helped me out,” said Ms. Wilson. “Oh, boy, did they help me out.”

        Five days before Chris was killed, Mr. Sweeney brought him to Christ Hospital to look into a volunteer program. He would do chores at the hospital. But, at 15, he was nervous about embarking on something that would ask more of him than school work.

        “It was something new to him and yet something scary,” said Mr. Sweeney. “He said, "This is something I need to do for myself. I need to grow up sometime.' I was very proud of him that night. I knew him as a young man who was trying to grow up.”

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