More out of Sudbury

Student charged with murder in fatal stabbing at suburban school:

The name of the suspect of the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School stabbing has been released. He is 16-year-old John Odgren of Princeton, Mass. He pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges yesterday in court. Which I find kind of strange considering that when police arrived Odgren had blood on his hands, proclaiming to police “I did it. I did it”. Odgren also allegedly said, “Is he OK? I don’t want him to die.” Odgren’s attorney, Jonathan Shapiro, is claiming that Odgren has Asperger’s Syndrome and is obviously going to use that as his defense.

“The defendant has a history of fairly serious psychological diagnoses and has also suffered from hyperactivity dysfunction for many years,” Shapiro said. “What is clear is John has a serious disability.”

Asperger’s is not an excuse for murder, and to claim so does a great disservice to people with Asperger’s. If this kind of defense continues, pretty soon people will think that all people with Asperger’s are potential killers. Not only that, but you could also have people who don’t have Asperger’s claiming that they do just so they can use it as a defense.

In Massachusetts, anyone age 14 or older is automatically tried as an adult. Alenson was stabbed in the heart and the abdomen and had cuts on his neck. This was no accident.

Students say assailant talked about murder, bombs:

Classmates of Odgren sure aren’t painting him as some poor misunderstood kid…

Just hours after a classmate was stabbed to death in a school bathroom, two Lincoln-Sudbury High School juniors yesterday said the student now accused of the killing often wore a trench coat to school and talked about murder, forensics and how he wanted to make a bomb.

Brianna Hogge, also a junior at L-S, said “Jack” was “always asking how to get away with killing people and talking about how to make acid to make bombs. He was a really creepy kid.”

Hogge said the student “was always talking about murder, overly interested in forensics and not happy things.”

She said the young man had, in the past, talked to many students and some teachers about his unusual interests.

I wouldn’t be surprised that if his claims of Asperger’s and asking if the victim was ok were all part of a plan to try to get away with murder.

Speaking of the victim…

Kin: Slain boy was ‘all-around good kid’:

James Alenson, the studious, sweet-faced freshman brutally stabbed to death yesterday morning at Lincoln-Sudbury High School, was remembered yesterday as an excellent kid and straight-A student who never made trouble with anyone.

He was just a nice kid. He was just an excellent kid, an all-around good kid, said the murdered boy’s grandfather, James Grotton of New Hampshire.

Alenson, 15, had just moved with his family to Sudbury in September from Natick, where he completed eighth grade at Wilson Middle School. He has a brother and sister. “He’s a straight-A student,” said Eryn Hearn, 14, a Natick High freshman. “We’re all shocked.”

His former classmates remembered Alenson as always toting around his clarinet and keeping to himself. A copy of his 2005 middle school year book shows him smiling with social studies teacher Niall Carey for the annual geography bee.

“You’d see him with (the clarinet) all the time,” said former classmate Anton Wilson, 14, of Natick. “He’s a nice kid who’s quiet.”

Does that sound like a kid who deserved to be stabbed to death?