Christopher Lane, a twenty-two year-old Australian collegiate baseball player was shot and killed by three teenagers who though it was fun to break boredom by randomly shooting someone.
The life of the twenty-two year old Lane, who was in the United States to attend school, was stealthily robbed from him by three teenagers who Prosecutor Jason Hicks call "thugs" while he was jogging . Lane was shot once in the back. His body was found sprawled along a tree-lined road on Duncan, Oklahoma's affluent part of the town.
Hicks charged teenagers James Francis Edwards Jr, fifteen and Chancey Allen Luna, sixteen, with first-degree murder. Following the Oklahoma law, they will be tried as adult. The third member of the trio, Michael Dewayne Jones, seventeen, was charges with using a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon and accessory to first-degree murder after the fact. Just like his two cohorts he will be tried in court despite him being considered a youthful offender. If they are found guilty of the murder charge, Edwards Jr and Luna will face life imprisonment without the possibility of being granted parole while Jones faces imprisonment that ranges from two year to life.
Hicks expressed how appalled he is at the crime committed. "This is not supposed to happen in this community," he said.
Chilling account of the moments after Lane was shot was recorded when a woman who identified herself as Joyce Smith made the 911 call and told the operator that she saw blood on Lane's back and she saw him fall over into a ditch. Smith was driving by when she saw Lane fall over.
Seeing that Edwards Jr. is a "threat to the community and should not be let out", Hicks requested him to be held without bail. Luna, like Edwards is also held without bails while Jones' is set at one million dollars.
The death of young Christopher Lane served as a reality check. Most Australians who mourn the death of Lane view United States' gun laws as the reason behind the country's high murder rate.
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