By Janice Morse
The Cincinnati Enquirer

HAMILTON - A Butler County judge Tuesday ordered that 14-year-old Madison Township twins accused of plotting to kill their siblings remain in detention as prosecutors seek to try them as "serious youthful offenders."

Assistant Prosecutor Greg Stephens explained that a grand jury will have to decide whether to indict the twins under that designation, which allows a judge to impose a "blended sentence" - a term in a juvenile facility, plus time in adult prison if the defendant commits another felony-level crime or a lower-level violent offense.

In a case that has attracted national attention, the teens are being held on delinquency charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, a charge the grand jury could modify. Stephens could not say when he expected the grand jury to make its decision, although Juvenile Court Judge David J. Niehaus set the boys' next hearing for June 27. In the meantime, he ordered that the teens undergo psychological evaluations. Their lawyers, Greg Beane and Richard N. Koehler II, raised questions about the twins' competency to stand trial and their sanity at the time of the alleged offense.

The case came to light last week after the boys' mother, Geraldine Rice, 32, went to police with a secretly recorded conversation in which, she says, the teens plotted to kill their brothers, ages 15 and 10. The twins' lawyers are trying to keep that tape from being used as evidence.

After the hearing, Rice said it pained her to give the tape to authorities, but "never in a million years did I think I would hear what I heard." Rice said her other sons are "confused," but trying to live as normally as possible.

E-mail jmorse@enquirer.com