On an August afternoon in Duncan, Oklahoma, 22-year-old Christopher Lane set out for a jog. He would not return alive.
Lane, an Australian citizen attending East Central University on a baseball scholarship, was shot and killed as he jogged, selected at random by three teens accused of murdering him because they were "bored and wanted to shoot someone."
Shortly after the shooting, Duncan police arrested three teens in connection with the killing: James Francis Edwards, Jr., 15 at the time; Chancey Allen Luna, 16; and Michael Dewayne Jones, then 17. Initially, Edwards and Luna were charged as adults with first degree murder, and Jones was charged as a youthful offender with being an accessory to murder after the fact and using a vehicle to facilitate the discharge of a firearm.
Since then, things have changed.
In November, charges against Jones were upgraded to first degree murder, after an investigation alleged that Jones intentionally swerved toward Lane in order to help Luna fire at him. Earlier this month, charges against Edwards were reduced to being an accessory after the fact when he agreed to testify against his co-defendants in exchange for reduced charges.
On February 4, Edwards testified for the prosecution in a preliminary hearing. He said that he was in the front passenger seat rolling a joint when Jones, the driver of the vehicle, swerved toward Lane and Luna shot him. He says his two friends looked "cold and shocked," and that later, Luna told Jones, "I thought there were supposed to be blanks in the gun," to which Jones replied, "Me, too. Sorry."
Edwards's testimony that the killing was accidental contradicts other evidence in the case. After the arrests, Jones told investigators that the three selected Lane at random, shooting him because they were bored. At least two of the suspects have also been linked to the killing of a donkey the night before as well as shooting two vehicles in the early morning hours of August 16. These shootings indicate that the teens did, in fact, know that they were carrying loaded weapons, and some say the vehicle and animal shootings were a type of drive-by target practice.
The preliminary hearing which began earlier this month is delayed until March, because one teen witness insisted upon speaking with an attorney before testifying. Stephens County Special Judge Jerry Herberger agreed to appoint the teen a lawyer and scheduled the conclusion of the hearing for March 12.
Edwards's attorney is requesting that his client be charged as a youthful offender rather than an adult for the accessory charge. He is expected in court in May.
