Australian Baseball Player Killed by Teens in Oklahoma who 'Decided to Kill Somebody'
An Australian baseball player who was visiting his girlfriend was shot dead in Oklahoma by three teenagers who told police they were "bored and didn't have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody."
Christopher Lane, 22, was visiting the town of Duncan where his girlfriend lives and decided to go for a jog. While running on the streets he was randomly picked and then gunned down, the local police chief told the AP.
"They saw Christopher go by, and one of them said: 'There's our target,'" the chief, Danny Ford, told the AP. "The boy who has talked to us said, 'We were bored and didn't have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody.'"
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Lane is from Melbourne but was in Oklahoma on a baseball scholarship at East Central University in Ada, Okla. He was a catcher who started 14 games and hit .250 for the Tigers this season, according to the school's athletics website.
Prosecutors are expected to file first-degree murder charges Tuesday against the three teens, aged 15, 16 and 17. They will appear in court, but it is not known if they will be charged as adults.
Witnesses told Australian television that Lane staggered and collapsed on the road after he was shot in the back with a .22-caliber revolver on Friday afternoon.
The parents of Christopher Lane, Peter and Donna, speak at a media conference at Essendon Baseball Club in Melbourne, Australia, on Monday.
"I don't really care what happens to them," she said of the accused in an interview with 9 News of Australia. "I feel like if they don't get what they deserve now and in the present, they will eternally. They're just evil people."
Lane's father, Peter, said that the killing was "heartless, and to try to understand it is a short way to insanity."
"The fact that something that shouldn't have happened has happened - it's the fact that somebody we all love so much is not going to come home," he said from Australia in video aired by KFOR.
