Teens’ Arrests Echo Columbine

NEW YORK -- An 18-year-old New Jersey man was held on $1-million bail Monday on charges of conspiracy to commit murder in what police called a Columbine-style plot.

Matthew Lovett was arrested with two younger teenagers after an alleged carjacking attempt. The driver sped off and alerted police.

Prosecutors said that when Patrolman Charles Antrilli confronted the three suspects in Oaklyn, N.J., they were armed with rifles, shotguns, handguns, knives, swords and 2,000 rounds of ammunition.

After the officer drew his weapon, the teenagers surrendered and were taken into custody before dawn Sunday. No shots were fired.

“The investigation indicates the defendants had been planning over the course of several months to commit multiple homicides in Oaklyn,” Camden County Prosecutor Vincent P. Sarubbi and Oaklyn Police Chief Christopher Ferrari said in a statement.

“Three specific individuals, all juveniles, were to be targeted,” the law enforcement officials said. “ ... In addition, the defendants allegedly planned to target an undetermined number of random victims.”

Authorities said the families of the three targeted juveniles were notified after the arrests.

Prosecutors charged that Lovett acted as the group’s leader. He appeared in New Jersey Superior Court in Camden, where bail was set. He could face 40 years or more in prison if convicted of murder conspiracy and other charges.

The names of his two companions, who are 14 and 15 years old, were not released because of their age.

But authorities said that like Lovett, they lived in Oaklyn, a blue-collar community near Philadelphia.

Authorities said the defendants planned for several months to commit the multiple murders, and that it appeared they were about to carry out the alleged plot when they were apprehended.

On Monday, a family friend read a letter from Ron Lovett, Matthew Lovett’s father, to reporters gathered outside the family’s apartment.

“He apologized for what his son did. He said he had lived in Oaklyn for 25 years and it was a nice and wonderful town with good people,” Tom Crymes, 55, said later in a telephone interview. “He thanked the police officers for their professionalism.”

Crymes said Lovett’s father is an electrical repairman. He said the family had suffered previous tragedies.

Lovett’s wife, Lorna, died about 10 years ago, and a daughter from an earlier marriage was killed while crossing the street, Crymes said.

He said Matthew Lovett tended to withdraw like his mother, who suffered panic attacks on the rare occasions when she went outdoors.

“The mother loved the kids, and she was sweet to the kids. But she just wouldn’t let them go out and play,” Crymes said.

One result, he said, was social awkwardness that mixed with anger when Matthew Lovett attended Collingswood High School. Crymes said students had taunted Lovett and his younger brother, who was born with a severe cleft palate.

“The doctor said it was the worst he has ever seen. It was like he had a hole in his face. He had a dozen or so operations trying to make his face right,” Crymes said.

Several students said Matthew Lovett drew violent pictures, sometimes carried a baseball bat around town and kept an enemies’ list going back to elementary school, Associated Press reported.

Jim Lovett, the defendant’s younger brother, told NBC-10 News in Philadelphia that the weapons police seized were kept in their father’s closet.

“The father had a gun collection,” Crymes said. “It started out with a rifle his grandfather gave him on his 11th or 12th birthday.”

Crymes recalled being startled when he asked Lovett last summer, just before his senior year, what he wanted to do upon graduation.

“He said, ‘No, I don’t want to go to college, I just want to stay the same; I want to be here,’ ” Crymes said.