Post by Rainbow Blight on Jul 31, 2005 7:31:03 GMT -5
So I stumbled upon this article about a middleschooler repeatedly hitting his brother 18 times in the head with a hammer because he thought he was a homosexual and he sided with his parents in a matter regarding his not being allowed to see his girlfriend. The ensuing debacle turned into a wild ride that looks like it could possibly be made into a goddamn movie. I know the article is three years old, but I found it interesting. Yes, the article is very long, but it's very interesting.
Really long goddamn time ago, some newspaper wrote:
And then the follow-up, as to what happened to Laskowski, the "accomplice," who ironically was a flaming homosexual as well:
Goddamn, that was long. But really crazy and interesting. And they just had to bring dextromethorphan into this. Jesus Christ. On the bright side, though, Ian Bishop is going to jail for at least 20 years.
Source.
Discuss.
Really long goddamn time ago, some newspaper wrote:
A 14-year-old Hempfield Township teen bludgeoned his only sibling to death with a claw hammer April 19 because he thought his brother was a homosexual, witnesses testified Tuesday during a preliminary hearing.
Ian Bishop, of 307 Laurentz Lane, also wanted to kill his parents because he was angry that they barred him from seeing his girlfriend, witnesses said.
Bishop and his alleged accomplice, Robert Laskowski, 15, of 516 Buckingham Drive in the township's Wendover section, were ordered yesterday by Youngwood area District Justice James Falcon to stand trial for first-degree murder and related charges for killing Ian's brother, Adam, 18, in the Bishops' home in Bovard.
Falcon ruled there was sufficient evidence for both teens to stand trial as adults after listening to 5 1/2 hours of testimony from six witnesses called by Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck and Assistant District Attorney Wayne Gongaware.
Ian Bishop and Laskowski, both freshmen at the high school, pleaded not guilty to the charges, and their respective attorneys, Tom Ceraso and Lee R. Demosky, both said yesterday they intend to pursue hearings to have the teens tried as juveniles.
The preliminary hearing yesterday was the first time since the brutal after-school murder of Adam Bishop, a Hempfield Area High School senior, that authorities have mentioned a motive for the slaying and the plot to kill Ian's parents, Jeffrey and Karen Bishop.
"It's my understanding from talking to Rob (Laskowski) that Ian was upset at not being allowed to see his girlfriend, Carrie Borg (also a student at the school). Ian also was mad at his brother, Adam, because he took his parents' position," state police Trooper Kirk D. Nolan testified.
Nolan said that last winter Ian Bishop, a member of the school track squad, had gotten in trouble at school for smoking cigarettes, and his parents blamed the episode on Borg's influence.
Nolan's statement about the motive came during cross-examination by Laskowski's attorney, Demosky, who had asked the trooper whether Laskowski told him that Ian Bishop planned to kill his family because he was mad at his parents after they cut off his relationship with his girlfriend, "and Adam was making up certain things about him and telling his parents."
Nolan testified that Laskowski told him Ian had planned the attack for three days, and that Laskowski had gone to Bishop's home after school to assist in the attack. However, Laskowski told Nolan he never struck Adam.
After arriving at the Bishop home at about 3:30 p.m., Laskowski told Nolan, Ian and Laskowski went into Ian's second-floor bedroom and talked for five or 10 minutes.
"Rob said Ian showed him a club and then said, "I'll be right back." Adam was the only other person at home and he was sitting in the computer room, which is right across from the bedroom," Nolan said.
"In about 30 seconds, Mr. Laskowski said he heard a thud and saw Adam lying on the floor of the computer room, and Ian had a hammer," Nolan said.
Laskowski told Nolan that he saw Ian strike Adam on the head with the hammer about five more times as he lay(cq) on the floor. Then Ian pulled his brother out into the hallway and struck him at least five more times on the head, Nolan quoted Laskowski as saying.
"Laskowski told me Adam began to cry at some point, and Ian told him to shut up, and Ian struck him three or four more times. Sometime during the attack, Mr. Laskowski said they turned up the music in Ian's bedroom," Nolan said.
Although Laskowski had told Ian he would help him kill Adam and his parents, Nolan said Laskowski told him he could not go through with it. However, he said that Laskowski admitted helping Ian carry his mortally wounded brother from the hallway and place him facedown in a bathtub, then watching Ian turn on the water.
"He (Laskowski) said at one point, because of the noise Adam was making and the sound (during the attack), that he had to go downstairs to the first floor," Nolan said.
Laskowski's description of the beating concurred with Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht's autopsy report, which indicated Adam was hit at least 18 times in the head.
After beating his brother, Ian went to Westmoreland Mall, about three miles from the Bishop home, at about 4:30 p.m., according to the testimony of three witnesses.
Heather Exton, 15, a Hempfield freshman, and her boyfriend, Jesse Brown, a 2001 Hempfield graduate, said they ran into Ian near the food court, where Bishop described the attack in vivid detail.
"What was his demeanor?" Peck asked Exton.
"He (Bishop) didn't care. He was laughing ... not ha, ha ... but giggling," Exton said.
Exton said Ian told her that he was mad at his parents for not letting him see Borg.
"And Ian said his brother, Adam, was a faggot," Exton said.
Exton also testified that some classmates thought Ian's friend, Laskowski, is a homosexual.
At one point during her testimony, Exton broke into tears as she told Falcon how Ian described his brother's condition to her as he and Laskowski put him into the bathtub and turned on the shower.
"Ian said it was bubbling," Exton said.
"What was bubbling?" Peck asked.
"His (Adam's) brain," Exton said.
Brown, of Slate Run Road, testified that he knew Adam Bishop before April 19, but had never met Ian before that day at the mall.
"Lindsay Myers (a friend of Exton's) had asked us to talk to Ian in the bathroom. He was outside ... he came up to me ... I knew it was him because he looked like his brother," Brown said.
"He (Ian) said he killed his brother. No one took him seriously ... he sounded pretty calm when he was talking," Brown said. "Ian said he hit Adam with a hammer and billy club. He also said he should have got his parents."
Brown said Ian was looking for a ride out of town. However, the trio "hung out" at the mall for about three hours before leaving in Brown's car.
Brown said the entire time the three teens were walking in the mall, Ian was "eating pills." Brown said the pills were Coricidin HBP Cough and Cold tablets. The over-the-counter medicine contains dextromethorphan, known as DXM or Dex, which is a relative of opiates.
The Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center issued an alert in 2000 that 13- to 19-year-olds were abusing Coricidin. The teens were seeking what they described as an LSD-like high from the tablets, which many users said they learned about over the Internet.
Under cross-examination, Brown told Demosky that he didn't take any pills and did not count how many Ian ingested.
"They make you act stupid," Brown said.
Brown said Ian went with him and Exton when Brown drove her home to retrieve a sweater. He said Ian asked him to stop at the high school so he could pick up books from his locker.
During the drive, Brown said he noticed Ian had blood spots on his left ear and on a foot.
After retrieving the books at the high school and Exton's sweater, the trio drove back to the mall and then to a home in South Greensburg. Brown said it was at the friend's home that he learned that Ian was telling the truth about killing his brother.
He said the people who lived at the house asked them to leave.
"They got a telephone call that Ian put his brother in the hospital and he (Adam) was dying. At that point, I knew he had done something," Brown said.
Brown said they left the house and dropped off Ian and his books at Wendover Middle School, where he was arrested by state police at about 1 a.m. April 20.
Laskowski was arrested at his home by state police at 9:30 p.m. that day.
Another classmate of Ian's, Rebecca Ann Ballew, 15, of Youngwood, said she also ran into Ian at the mall that night of the killing. Ballew said she dated Adam Bishop late last year.
"Ian told me in February he wanted to kill them (his family). They wouldn't let him see his girlfriend," Ballew said.
"When Ian came up to me at the mall, I could see his pupils were dilated. He came up and said he needed to get away from here, that he and his brother had got into a fight ... nothing real big the way he talked. It was just like he hit him," Ballew said.
Ballew said she was going to join Brown, Exton and Bishop on the drive, but got out of the car when she got a call on her cellular telephone from Myers saying that Ian had indeed severely injured his brother and that Adam was not expected to survive.
"I asked Ian if it was really true, and he said yes. I got out of the car and went back into the mall and stayed until about 9:30 p.m.," Ballew said.
Ballew said under questioning by Gongaware that Ian described to the other teens how after the beating "Adam's brains were showing."
"Ian said he did it with a hammer," Ballew said.
Under cross-examination by Ceraso, Ballew said she remembered Brown telling Ian during the evening that he was going to take him out drinking to congratulate him for killing his brother.
All of the teens said that Ian admitted that he beat his brother while Laskowski watched.
Another friend, Mathew Bumbaugh, testified that Ian telephoned him after the attack and asked him to come to the house, admitting that he had beaten his brother with a hammer. Ian asked him to "bring a gun," Bumbaugh said.
Bumbaugh said when he and his mother arrived, Laskowski was at the front door and Ian was on the stairway, holding a gallon of milk.
Both Bumbaugh and his mother, Terri Ann, said Ian and Laskowski directed them upstairs to the bathtub. The Bumbaughs said they noticed that Ian was wearing bloody socks and the upstairs hallway floors and walls were covered with blood.
"You could see (on) the inside of Adam's head there was a 3- or 4-inch-diameter hole in the back. Ian looked like a zombie ... no emotion like the Ian I knew before this," Mathew Bumbaugh said.
"I told Ian to shut off the water or his brother would drown ... and he said that might be good," Terri Bumbaugh said.
Mathew Bumbaugh, who has been home-schooled since the incident, said the Bishops' parents also had forbidden Ian from seeing Bumbaugh for two weeks before the attack. The reason for their breaking off that friendship was not disclosed.
Terri Bumbaugh said she saw Ian change clothes in his bedroom while she was caring for Adam before paramedics arrived. She said Ian and Laskowski fled the house on foot before an ambulance arrived.
In his closing statement, Peck said described the evidence as "nothing short of overwhelming with the 18 blows to the head ... the attempted drowning."
Although Laskowski did not strike Adam, Peck said Laskowski was Ian's "courage, or backbone."
"There's clear evidence of premeditation here. He hated his brother because he thought he was homosexual, and he hated his parents because they kept him from Carrie Borg," Peck said.
Laskowski's parents, Matthew and Susan, sat behind their son during the hearing, while Jeffrey Bishop sat near Ian. The parents talked with their sons during breaks in the proceedings, but did not appear to converse with one another.
Bishop and Laskowski were in blue prison jumpsuits, their hands and feet shackled. Neither teen showed any emotion during the testimony, but Bishop appeared to nervously rub his thumbs and fingers together.
Moments after Falcon ordered both teens to stand trial for the killing, Jeffrey Bishop leaned over his son's shoulder and kissed him on the cheek, appearing to console him. None of the parents spoke with the media.
Ian Bishop, of 307 Laurentz Lane, also wanted to kill his parents because he was angry that they barred him from seeing his girlfriend, witnesses said.
Bishop and his alleged accomplice, Robert Laskowski, 15, of 516 Buckingham Drive in the township's Wendover section, were ordered yesterday by Youngwood area District Justice James Falcon to stand trial for first-degree murder and related charges for killing Ian's brother, Adam, 18, in the Bishops' home in Bovard.
Falcon ruled there was sufficient evidence for both teens to stand trial as adults after listening to 5 1/2 hours of testimony from six witnesses called by Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck and Assistant District Attorney Wayne Gongaware.
Ian Bishop and Laskowski, both freshmen at the high school, pleaded not guilty to the charges, and their respective attorneys, Tom Ceraso and Lee R. Demosky, both said yesterday they intend to pursue hearings to have the teens tried as juveniles.
The preliminary hearing yesterday was the first time since the brutal after-school murder of Adam Bishop, a Hempfield Area High School senior, that authorities have mentioned a motive for the slaying and the plot to kill Ian's parents, Jeffrey and Karen Bishop.
"It's my understanding from talking to Rob (Laskowski) that Ian was upset at not being allowed to see his girlfriend, Carrie Borg (also a student at the school). Ian also was mad at his brother, Adam, because he took his parents' position," state police Trooper Kirk D. Nolan testified.
Nolan said that last winter Ian Bishop, a member of the school track squad, had gotten in trouble at school for smoking cigarettes, and his parents blamed the episode on Borg's influence.
Nolan's statement about the motive came during cross-examination by Laskowski's attorney, Demosky, who had asked the trooper whether Laskowski told him that Ian Bishop planned to kill his family because he was mad at his parents after they cut off his relationship with his girlfriend, "and Adam was making up certain things about him and telling his parents."
Nolan testified that Laskowski told him Ian had planned the attack for three days, and that Laskowski had gone to Bishop's home after school to assist in the attack. However, Laskowski told Nolan he never struck Adam.
After arriving at the Bishop home at about 3:30 p.m., Laskowski told Nolan, Ian and Laskowski went into Ian's second-floor bedroom and talked for five or 10 minutes.
"Rob said Ian showed him a club and then said, "I'll be right back." Adam was the only other person at home and he was sitting in the computer room, which is right across from the bedroom," Nolan said.
"In about 30 seconds, Mr. Laskowski said he heard a thud and saw Adam lying on the floor of the computer room, and Ian had a hammer," Nolan said.
Laskowski told Nolan that he saw Ian strike Adam on the head with the hammer about five more times as he lay(cq) on the floor. Then Ian pulled his brother out into the hallway and struck him at least five more times on the head, Nolan quoted Laskowski as saying.
"Laskowski told me Adam began to cry at some point, and Ian told him to shut up, and Ian struck him three or four more times. Sometime during the attack, Mr. Laskowski said they turned up the music in Ian's bedroom," Nolan said.
Although Laskowski had told Ian he would help him kill Adam and his parents, Nolan said Laskowski told him he could not go through with it. However, he said that Laskowski admitted helping Ian carry his mortally wounded brother from the hallway and place him facedown in a bathtub, then watching Ian turn on the water.
"He (Laskowski) said at one point, because of the noise Adam was making and the sound (during the attack), that he had to go downstairs to the first floor," Nolan said.
Laskowski's description of the beating concurred with Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht's autopsy report, which indicated Adam was hit at least 18 times in the head.
After beating his brother, Ian went to Westmoreland Mall, about three miles from the Bishop home, at about 4:30 p.m., according to the testimony of three witnesses.
Heather Exton, 15, a Hempfield freshman, and her boyfriend, Jesse Brown, a 2001 Hempfield graduate, said they ran into Ian near the food court, where Bishop described the attack in vivid detail.
"What was his demeanor?" Peck asked Exton.
"He (Bishop) didn't care. He was laughing ... not ha, ha ... but giggling," Exton said.
Exton said Ian told her that he was mad at his parents for not letting him see Borg.
"And Ian said his brother, Adam, was a faggot," Exton said.
Exton also testified that some classmates thought Ian's friend, Laskowski, is a homosexual.
At one point during her testimony, Exton broke into tears as she told Falcon how Ian described his brother's condition to her as he and Laskowski put him into the bathtub and turned on the shower.
"Ian said it was bubbling," Exton said.
"What was bubbling?" Peck asked.
"His (Adam's) brain," Exton said.
Brown, of Slate Run Road, testified that he knew Adam Bishop before April 19, but had never met Ian before that day at the mall.
"Lindsay Myers (a friend of Exton's) had asked us to talk to Ian in the bathroom. He was outside ... he came up to me ... I knew it was him because he looked like his brother," Brown said.
"He (Ian) said he killed his brother. No one took him seriously ... he sounded pretty calm when he was talking," Brown said. "Ian said he hit Adam with a hammer and billy club. He also said he should have got his parents."
Brown said Ian was looking for a ride out of town. However, the trio "hung out" at the mall for about three hours before leaving in Brown's car.
Brown said the entire time the three teens were walking in the mall, Ian was "eating pills." Brown said the pills were Coricidin HBP Cough and Cold tablets. The over-the-counter medicine contains dextromethorphan, known as DXM or Dex, which is a relative of opiates.
The Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center issued an alert in 2000 that 13- to 19-year-olds were abusing Coricidin. The teens were seeking what they described as an LSD-like high from the tablets, which many users said they learned about over the Internet.
Under cross-examination, Brown told Demosky that he didn't take any pills and did not count how many Ian ingested.
"They make you act stupid," Brown said.
Brown said Ian went with him and Exton when Brown drove her home to retrieve a sweater. He said Ian asked him to stop at the high school so he could pick up books from his locker.
During the drive, Brown said he noticed Ian had blood spots on his left ear and on a foot.
After retrieving the books at the high school and Exton's sweater, the trio drove back to the mall and then to a home in South Greensburg. Brown said it was at the friend's home that he learned that Ian was telling the truth about killing his brother.
He said the people who lived at the house asked them to leave.
"They got a telephone call that Ian put his brother in the hospital and he (Adam) was dying. At that point, I knew he had done something," Brown said.
Brown said they left the house and dropped off Ian and his books at Wendover Middle School, where he was arrested by state police at about 1 a.m. April 20.
Laskowski was arrested at his home by state police at 9:30 p.m. that day.
Another classmate of Ian's, Rebecca Ann Ballew, 15, of Youngwood, said she also ran into Ian at the mall that night of the killing. Ballew said she dated Adam Bishop late last year.
"Ian told me in February he wanted to kill them (his family). They wouldn't let him see his girlfriend," Ballew said.
"When Ian came up to me at the mall, I could see his pupils were dilated. He came up and said he needed to get away from here, that he and his brother had got into a fight ... nothing real big the way he talked. It was just like he hit him," Ballew said.
Ballew said she was going to join Brown, Exton and Bishop on the drive, but got out of the car when she got a call on her cellular telephone from Myers saying that Ian had indeed severely injured his brother and that Adam was not expected to survive.
"I asked Ian if it was really true, and he said yes. I got out of the car and went back into the mall and stayed until about 9:30 p.m.," Ballew said.
Ballew said under questioning by Gongaware that Ian described to the other teens how after the beating "Adam's brains were showing."
"Ian said he did it with a hammer," Ballew said.
Under cross-examination by Ceraso, Ballew said she remembered Brown telling Ian during the evening that he was going to take him out drinking to congratulate him for killing his brother.
All of the teens said that Ian admitted that he beat his brother while Laskowski watched.
Another friend, Mathew Bumbaugh, testified that Ian telephoned him after the attack and asked him to come to the house, admitting that he had beaten his brother with a hammer. Ian asked him to "bring a gun," Bumbaugh said.
Bumbaugh said when he and his mother arrived, Laskowski was at the front door and Ian was on the stairway, holding a gallon of milk.
Both Bumbaugh and his mother, Terri Ann, said Ian and Laskowski directed them upstairs to the bathtub. The Bumbaughs said they noticed that Ian was wearing bloody socks and the upstairs hallway floors and walls were covered with blood.
"You could see (on) the inside of Adam's head there was a 3- or 4-inch-diameter hole in the back. Ian looked like a zombie ... no emotion like the Ian I knew before this," Mathew Bumbaugh said.
"I told Ian to shut off the water or his brother would drown ... and he said that might be good," Terri Bumbaugh said.
Mathew Bumbaugh, who has been home-schooled since the incident, said the Bishops' parents also had forbidden Ian from seeing Bumbaugh for two weeks before the attack. The reason for their breaking off that friendship was not disclosed.
Terri Bumbaugh said she saw Ian change clothes in his bedroom while she was caring for Adam before paramedics arrived. She said Ian and Laskowski fled the house on foot before an ambulance arrived.
In his closing statement, Peck said described the evidence as "nothing short of overwhelming with the 18 blows to the head ... the attempted drowning."
Although Laskowski did not strike Adam, Peck said Laskowski was Ian's "courage, or backbone."
"There's clear evidence of premeditation here. He hated his brother because he thought he was homosexual, and he hated his parents because they kept him from Carrie Borg," Peck said.
Laskowski's parents, Matthew and Susan, sat behind their son during the hearing, while Jeffrey Bishop sat near Ian. The parents talked with their sons during breaks in the proceedings, but did not appear to converse with one another.
Bishop and Laskowski were in blue prison jumpsuits, their hands and feet shackled. Neither teen showed any emotion during the testimony, but Bishop appeared to nervously rub his thumbs and fingers together.
Moments after Falcon ordered both teens to stand trial for the killing, Jeffrey Bishop leaned over his son's shoulder and kissed him on the cheek, appearing to console him. None of the parents spoke with the media.
And then the follow-up, as to what happened to Laskowski, the "accomplice," who ironically was a flaming homosexual as well:
Accused teen killer Robert Laskowski is scheduled to appear in court this morning, but his murder trial likely will be postponed yet again as attorneys continue to hash out a possible plea bargain.
So far, attempts to end Laskowski's case short of a trial have been unsuccessful. Attorneys for both the prosecution and defense now say the case could end up at trial.
Defense attorney Lee Demosky said no trial date has been scheduled, and the case won't be resolved this morning.
"We're still working in order to try to get something worked out if we can," Demosky said.
Laskowski, now 16, is charged with first-degree murder in the April 19, 2002, bludgeoning death of 18-year-old Adam Bishop. Bishop was struck at least 18 times in the head with a claw hammer and wooden club.
Adam Bishop's younger brother, Ian, was convicted last summer of third-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Ian Bishop is appealing the conviction and has begun serving a sentence of 20 to 40 years in adult prison.
Last fall, attorneys for Laskowski and the district attorney's office were negotiating toward a deal in which the teen would plead guilty to third-degree murder, the same offense for which Ian Bishop was convicted. Sentencing would then be left up to a judge.
But as of last Friday, no deal had been reached and the case is now expected to be delayed again as a jury trial is becoming more likely.
"It's possible it could go either way," said Westmoreland County Assistant District Attorney Wayne Gongaware.
Authorities contend Laskowski participated in the fatal beating. He told police he was present but did not participate when Ian Bishop repeatedly struck his brother then failed to give assistance to the older boy as he was left to die while bleeding in a bathtub.
During his trial in July, Ian Bishop contended that his older brother initiated the fatal fight and that it was Laskowski who leveled most of the blows. Bishop's attorneys never offered a reason as to why Laskowski would have attacked Adam Bishop.
Prosecutors initially said Ian Bishop, who was 14 at the time of the murder, was angry at his parents and brother because they prevented him from seeing his then-15-year-old girlfriend. Authorities contended Bishop concocted a plot to kill his parents and brother with the help of Laskowski.
The Tribune-Review last week obtained a copy of evidence police seized in the case that, if introduced at trial, could have provided additional motive for Ian Bishop to have killed his brother. The evidence is in the form of a letter written by the girlfriend of Ian Bishop.
The letter never mentions Laskowski's name or suggests there is a plot to kill Adam Bishop. It also provides no information that Ian Bishop had intentions to harm anyone.
In the nine-page handwritten letter addressed to Ian Bishop, Kari Borg said the teens' romantic relationship was potentially ending in part because Ian Bishop had acquiesced to his parents' wishes that they no longer see one another.
In the letter, Borg tells Ian Bishop she is in love with him but also would like to start a relationship with another boy. At the conclusion of the letter Borg gave Ian Bishop an ultimatum -- meet with her at a specific time or they would no longer be involved.
"I'm sorry for the way your parents are treating you but why must I get taken down with you? Why are you bringing me down," Borg wrote.
Later she said in the letter: "But as I said 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. or NOTHING!!! If you don't come up I'll assume we are broken up for GOOD which will probably be the case and I'll find Justin and fulfill my dream to be with him."
Nothing on the letter indicates exactly when it was written or when or if Ian Bishop had read it.
Borg did not testify at Bishop's trial and her letter was never made part of the official evidence in the case.
"She didn't testify. ... That was the only way it (the letter) could have been admitted," said Assistant District Attorney Pat Noonan, the lawyer who prosecuted Ian Bishop.
Borg's letter, if introduced as evidence in the Bishop trial, could have hurt the prosecution's efforts to win a first-degree murder conviction. Noonan conceded that a jury, in general, upon learning a defendant had been scorned by a lover, could find he acted in the heat of passion, which is consistent with a third-degree murder verdict.
Prosecutors previously suggested they may never know the real reason why Ian Bishop killed his brother.
"Motive was and remains a mystery," Noonan said.
In previous court appearances, Demosky argued that Laskowski was duped into being in the Bishop home the afternoon of the killing.
Ian Bishop and Laskowski both were members of the Hempfield Area High School track team, but their friendship struck a few teachers and students as strange. During a court hearing in the summer of 2002, school administrators described Bishop as a racist with violent tendencies while Laskowski, they said, was openly gay and nonviolent.
Demosky previously argued that Bishop gave Laskowski a club during the attack but that Laskowski only helped move Adam Bishop's body into a bathtub.
According to previous testimony, Laskowski also told police that he knew Ian Bishop planned to kill his family at least three days before the fatal fight with his brother.
So far, attempts to end Laskowski's case short of a trial have been unsuccessful. Attorneys for both the prosecution and defense now say the case could end up at trial.
Defense attorney Lee Demosky said no trial date has been scheduled, and the case won't be resolved this morning.
"We're still working in order to try to get something worked out if we can," Demosky said.
Laskowski, now 16, is charged with first-degree murder in the April 19, 2002, bludgeoning death of 18-year-old Adam Bishop. Bishop was struck at least 18 times in the head with a claw hammer and wooden club.
Adam Bishop's younger brother, Ian, was convicted last summer of third-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Ian Bishop is appealing the conviction and has begun serving a sentence of 20 to 40 years in adult prison.
Last fall, attorneys for Laskowski and the district attorney's office were negotiating toward a deal in which the teen would plead guilty to third-degree murder, the same offense for which Ian Bishop was convicted. Sentencing would then be left up to a judge.
But as of last Friday, no deal had been reached and the case is now expected to be delayed again as a jury trial is becoming more likely.
"It's possible it could go either way," said Westmoreland County Assistant District Attorney Wayne Gongaware.
Authorities contend Laskowski participated in the fatal beating. He told police he was present but did not participate when Ian Bishop repeatedly struck his brother then failed to give assistance to the older boy as he was left to die while bleeding in a bathtub.
During his trial in July, Ian Bishop contended that his older brother initiated the fatal fight and that it was Laskowski who leveled most of the blows. Bishop's attorneys never offered a reason as to why Laskowski would have attacked Adam Bishop.
Prosecutors initially said Ian Bishop, who was 14 at the time of the murder, was angry at his parents and brother because they prevented him from seeing his then-15-year-old girlfriend. Authorities contended Bishop concocted a plot to kill his parents and brother with the help of Laskowski.
The Tribune-Review last week obtained a copy of evidence police seized in the case that, if introduced at trial, could have provided additional motive for Ian Bishop to have killed his brother. The evidence is in the form of a letter written by the girlfriend of Ian Bishop.
The letter never mentions Laskowski's name or suggests there is a plot to kill Adam Bishop. It also provides no information that Ian Bishop had intentions to harm anyone.
In the nine-page handwritten letter addressed to Ian Bishop, Kari Borg said the teens' romantic relationship was potentially ending in part because Ian Bishop had acquiesced to his parents' wishes that they no longer see one another.
In the letter, Borg tells Ian Bishop she is in love with him but also would like to start a relationship with another boy. At the conclusion of the letter Borg gave Ian Bishop an ultimatum -- meet with her at a specific time or they would no longer be involved.
"I'm sorry for the way your parents are treating you but why must I get taken down with you? Why are you bringing me down," Borg wrote.
Later she said in the letter: "But as I said 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. or NOTHING!!! If you don't come up I'll assume we are broken up for GOOD which will probably be the case and I'll find Justin and fulfill my dream to be with him."
Nothing on the letter indicates exactly when it was written or when or if Ian Bishop had read it.
Borg did not testify at Bishop's trial and her letter was never made part of the official evidence in the case.
"She didn't testify. ... That was the only way it (the letter) could have been admitted," said Assistant District Attorney Pat Noonan, the lawyer who prosecuted Ian Bishop.
Borg's letter, if introduced as evidence in the Bishop trial, could have hurt the prosecution's efforts to win a first-degree murder conviction. Noonan conceded that a jury, in general, upon learning a defendant had been scorned by a lover, could find he acted in the heat of passion, which is consistent with a third-degree murder verdict.
Prosecutors previously suggested they may never know the real reason why Ian Bishop killed his brother.
"Motive was and remains a mystery," Noonan said.
In previous court appearances, Demosky argued that Laskowski was duped into being in the Bishop home the afternoon of the killing.
Ian Bishop and Laskowski both were members of the Hempfield Area High School track team, but their friendship struck a few teachers and students as strange. During a court hearing in the summer of 2002, school administrators described Bishop as a racist with violent tendencies while Laskowski, they said, was openly gay and nonviolent.
Demosky previously argued that Bishop gave Laskowski a club during the attack but that Laskowski only helped move Adam Bishop's body into a bathtub.
According to previous testimony, Laskowski also told police that he knew Ian Bishop planned to kill his family at least three days before the fatal fight with his brother.
Goddamn, that was long. But really crazy and interesting. And they just had to bring dextromethorphan into this. Jesus Christ. On the bright side, though, Ian Bishop is going to jail for at least 20 years.
Source.
Discuss.
