Tragedy Tears at Community : Boy Who Killed at Age 9 May Be Tried as an Adult

At first, police feared a sniper was loose.

It was March 6 and, up on Hideaway Hill, 7-year-old Jessica Ann Carr had been shot once in the back as she and a friend rode a yellow snowmobile. Terrified neighbors screamed for other children to come inside, then cried and prayed as ambulance workers tried in vain to save the little girl.

That night, police officers found a suspect with a bloody, crescent-shaped gash on his forehead. It matched the telescopic sight of a Marlin hunting rifle in an upstairs bedroom. Soon, the suspect confessed that he had fired the gun, and he was hustled past clamoring photographers with a coat over his head.

But tragedy is still tearing at this tiny Pocono Mountains community. Police say the killer was Cameron R. Kocher, a 9-year-old Cub Scout, Bible class leader and honor roll student. And, if prosecutors have their way, the sandy-haired, freckle-faced boy may be the youngest person ever tried for murder in a U.S. adult court.

“He’s a good boy,” said Cameron’s mother, Patricia Kocher, fighting back tears. “He’s not violent. He’s not that kind of kid.

“Life is going so nice and you think everything is great, and then this . . . “ she added, standing at the door of the family’s modest split-level home. “It’s so hard. It’s like something terrible you read about. It’s just so hard.”

Prosecutor Mark Pazuhanich said the case is tough for him, too. “This is a case I agonize over absolutely every single day,” he said. “Nothing I’ve ever done compares to this.”

Indeed, Cameron’s case appears unique. Nationwide, children under 14 are involved in 250 shooting deaths each year. But most crime involving children is handled by juvenile courts, where hearings are closed, records are sealed and treatment is preferred to punishment. Under Pennsylvania law, however, anyone charged with murder must be charged as an adult, no matter what the age.

After four days of testimony by family members, friends and four psychiatrists, Common Pleas Court Judge Ronald Vican ruled on June 23 that Cameron’s actions were “deliberate and willful” and refused to transfer the case to juvenile court.

Stuck Out Tongue

As he sat at the defense table during the hearing, Cameron’s legs didn’t reach the ground. Outside, he stuck his tongue out at TV cameras.

“He doesn’t understand what’s going on,” Cameron’s lawyer, Charles Hansford, complained. “All he knows is he had to stop going to school, he can’t see his friends, and the press follows him when he’s out on the street.”

Hansford insists that the shooting was an accident. “He was a kid, honking around with his father’s gun,” he said. “. . . His feelings of guilt, if they exist, are that he disobeyed his father.”

Cameron’s father, Keith, works at a sand and gravel supply company. He and his wife, who have been married 16 years, took their only son fishing, camping and hunting for rabbits and squirrel. They also took him to the Indian Mountain Gun Club and taught him to load and fire a .22-caliber rifle with a scope.

Friends say he was a good shot: He would hit “six out of six” soda cans when shooting a BB gun, a neighbor said.

At the hearing, two psychiatrists testified that Cameron had said he was “playing hunter” when he fired the gun.

Cameron, now 10, is accused of criminal homicide, a broad charge that includes first-, second- and third-degree murder, as well as voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. He is free on $50,000 bail.

Pazuhanich said he will also charge Cameron with aggravated assault and reckless endangerment when a preliminary hearing is held today.

Wants Extended Treatment

“People automatically assume we’re out to hang the kid, and that’s the furthest thing from the truth,” said Pazuhanich, a first assistant district attorney. His goal, he said, is to ensure long-term psychiatric evaluation and treatment. “In the juvenile system, we’d only have control until he’s 21,” he said.

Pazuhanich insisted that, although he wants Cameron ultimately to be treated, not imprisoned, “there is sufficient evidence from which a jury could conclude that this was first-degree murder.”

If it does, Cameron’s lawyer warned, the law requires mandatory life in prison. Even with a lesser charge, Hansford said, the boy cannot help in his own defense.

“How can he help me?” Hansford asked. “I don’t know how to deal with a 9-year-old as far as preparing for trial . . . . If there’s a plea, I don’t know how I could explain it to him. How would he understand?”

If the case proceeds, lawyers on both sides say, research suggests Cameron would be the nation’s youngest defendant to face adult charges for murder. The last known similar cases were in the 1800s and involved 11-year-old boys in New Jersey and Alabama.

Only Murder This Year

That’s an unwanted distinction for these gentle rolling hills in northeast Pennsylvania, where the nearest town, Kresgeville, boasts little but a restaurant, school and fire station. The shooting was the first murder case in all Monroe County this year, and Pazuhanich is only a part-time prosecutor.

But, according to police reports, interviews and testimony, there is little dispute about the March 6 shooting.

With heavy snow falling, Polk Elementary School officials had canceled classes. Cameron, who was home alone, went next door to play “Spy Hunter,” a Nintendo game, with fellow fourth-grader Chris Ratti. First-grader Jessica and half a dozen other children were playing nearby.

Shortly after noon, Chris’ father, Richard Ratti, ordered the children to stop playing the video game because someone had left dirty dishes out. Cameron argued that it wasn’t his fault. Then he stamped off home.

Cameron, who was wearing a Garfield T-shirt emblazoned, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve been,” went upstairs to his parents’ wood-paneled bedroom. A picture of Jesus hung to the left of the bed, and a picture of Cameron hung to the right. On the side, 10 rifles stood in a glass-front gun cabinet.

After taking the key from under a bedside lamp, Cameron unlocked the cabinet and chose the lever-action Marlin, with a 20-power scope. He unlocked the ammo drawer and loaded the gun with a single Remington cartridge.

Pointed Rifle Out Window

He moved to the bed, unlocked the window, raised the glass and removed the screen, stashing it behind the bed. Purple chintz curtains blew in the wintry breeze. He pointed the rifle out the window. It was 1:10 p.m.

One hundred yards to the right, through an opening in a thin line of evergreens, Jessica rode behind her friend, Shannon Ratti, on a slow-moving Ski-Doo. Suddenly, Jessica slumped forward.

“I looked back, and her eyes were rolled way back into her head,” said Shannon, 13. Then she fell into the snow.

Jessica’s mother, Donna Carr, who was visiting the Rattis, ran out to help carry the body inside. She began to scream when she found the huge gunshot wound inside the girl’s pink and blue jacket. Fearing a gunman was loose, Richard Ratti telephoned Cameron next door and told him to run back quickly. But, when he arrived, Cameron ignored his crying friends and the body on the living room floor.

“He said, ‘Don’t think about it and you won’t be sad,’ ” said Brian Ratti, 13. “He looked at her and went back and started playing Nintendo,” said Mrs. Carr, who clutched her daughter’s teddy bear while she testified.

That night, Cameron’s parents called police. Although he gave several stories to explain how he’d cut his forehead, he finally admitted the cut came from the rifle’s sharp recoil. Upstairs, police officers found blood splattered on the scope, walls, window and sheets. Cameron gave them the spent shell casing.

State trooper Clark Ritter read Cameron his Miranda rights as he sat on his mother’s lap.

Saw Only Trees, Snow

Weeks later, Cameron told psychiatrist Robert A. Sadoff that he saw only “trees and snow” when he looked through the scope. “I asked him if he saw anybody in the scope, any person,” Sadoff testified. “He said he did not.”

By all accounts, Cameron was a shy, well-behaved boy given to “please” and “thank you.” Parents and son were close, with no signs of abuse. The psychiatrists agreed that Cameron had no indication or history of mental illness.

But others saw the boy as withdrawn and insecure. His fourth-grade teacher, Joan Rinker, called him a “loner” who showed no emotion. “He was kind of . . . like on the outside looking in,” she said.

The emotion-charged case has divided neighbors and friends. Ratti, the Kochers’ neighbor, angrily accuses Cameron of silently staring at his children from the next yard. “They see him over there and they’re afraid to go out,” Ratti said. ‘My kids say: ‘Did he get to kill Jessie and nothing happened to him?’ ”

But many agree with the Rev. Harry Kissinger, pastor of Jerusalem Church of Christ, the Kochers’ church. “He’s being treated as an adult, and everyone knows he’s not an adult. He’s a child.”

And, down the road from the shooting, sitting in a living room filled with the trophy heads of deer and bear, retired sales executive Maurice Ryman and his wife, Jeanne, agree that Cameron’s punishment is clear whatever happens in the long legal ordeal ahead.

“He has to live with this,” Ryman said. “His punishment will follow him the rest of his life.”