Christopher Lane, a 22-year-old baseball player from Melbourne, Australia, was shot and killed last week in Duncan, Oklahoma. Three teens are accused of randomly shooting him and one has told police that they shot him because they were ‘bored.’
Police Chief Danny Ford said Monday that Lane was visiting Duncan, where his girlfriend lives, reports The Associated Press. He decided to go out for a jog and passed a house three boys were staying. A 17-year-old who was among the group gave a detailed confession, police said. The other two, aged 15 and 16, are also in custody. Ford said he expected the prosecutor to charge them with first-degree murder today and it’s not clear if they’ll be charged as juveniles or adults. Ford also said that the weapon has not been found.
“They saw Christopher go by, and one of them said: ‘There’s our target,”’ Ford told the media. “The boy who has talked to us said, ‘We were bored and didn’t have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody.”’ Ford also told KOCO that one of them said they shot Lane for “the fun of it.”
Australia’s ABC.net.au reports that the teens posted on Facebook, “Bang. Two drops in two hours.”
“It's been pretty unbearable, he was so close to home and that there was nothing that could have changed the outcome,” Sarah Harper, Lane’s girlfriend told ABC. “You can't plan ahead for something like this, so it's hard to imagine who could think of doing anything like this." She added that she did not know the boys accused of shooting Lane.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the parents of the accused deny that their sons are involved. “I don’t believe he was there because of the time frame,” the mother of one of the boys said.
Lane was in Oklahoma on a baseball scholarship and was attending East Central University. He was entering his senior year.