Truth About Boy’s Death May Never Be Known

What really happened to 15-year-old T.J. Frazier?

Detectives think they finally have figured out the Spokane Valley boy’s death.

Joseph L. Hamlin, 16, is charged with first-degree manslaughter. His teenage buddy, Sam Krueger, will swear that the bullet Hamlin pumped into T.J.’s brain on Feb. 21, 1996, was an accident - pure and simple.

Hamlin pleaded not guilty to the crime. If convicted, he could be jailed until age 21. His trial is set for Jan. 29 in juvenile court.

But T.J.’s father, John Frazier, says there’s no reason to believe the truth is being told now any more than it was in the weeks following his son’s death. Quizzed by police back then, Hamlin and Krueger claimed they were nowhere near the Frazier home the day their friend died.

Frazier blames investigators for too quickly writing off his son’s death as another tragic teen suicide.

“T.J. died a horrible death,” Frazier says, “but worse than that, his name was dishonored. It’s time his name was cleared.”

No one can blame Frazier for his furor. His family endured 18 months of mental torture while the case dragged nowhere.

This certainly had the veneer of a suicide. Coming home from school, T.J.’s younger sisters discovered their brother’s body sprawled on his bedroom floor.

His head was a bloody mess. A handgun lay nearby. What looked like a note was found.

Even T.J.’s life seemed to support the suicide angle. He was a troubled kid who had spent time in a rehab clinic trying to overcome a drug problem. He was home the day he died because he had been kicked out of East Valley High School for smoking.

Easy answers, however, are not always the correct ones.

The investigation hit its first snag when T.J.’s body was prematurely sent to a funeral home. By the time Spokane County Coroner Dexter Amend caught up to it, the body had been washed.

Amend ordered an autopsy, although critical evidence had been flushed away.

The “failure to examine the body prior to disturbance by funeral home has now clouded the issue with regard to the manner of death,” chastised forensic pathologist George Lindholm in his autopsy report. “Valuable information … has been lost.”

On Monday, Lindholm was more blunt. “This is a homicide and should have been nailed as such from the beginning.”

Despite the pathologist’s earlier concerns, Amend listed suicide as the cause of death.

But so many facts didn’t add up:

T.J. had been shot through the top of his head. There were no fingerprints on the weapon, which turned out to be stolen. T.J. presumably obtained it to protect himself from older kids.

The note wasn’t a suicide letter at all, but an old love letter from one of T.J.’s former girlfriends.

Spokane County Sheriff’s Detective Dave Madsen became more suspicious with each twist and turn. But without a witness or motive, the case languished.

Until last August. The break came when Krueger’s sister could no longer contain the oppressive secret her brother had laid on her.

Hamlin and Krueger skipped school and had been in T.J.’s room on that awful Wednesday, she said. Hamlin was fiddling with the weapon he thought was unloaded. As T.J. bent forward while sitting on his bed, the boy foolishly pulled the trigger.

According to court documents, both Hamlin and Krueger confirmed this account when confronted by police.

Madsen is convinced the shooting was not deliberate. Hamlin’s public defender, John Whaley, calls what happened a “horrible accident.”

The Fraziers aren’t so sure.

There was bad blood between Hamlin and their son, they note. They wonder why kids who can lie to police and let a family suffer so long should be trusted now.

“I still don’t think we know the truth,” says T.J.’s heartsick mother, Julia. “But as far as I’m concerned the cover-up is the real crime. It was cold. It was self-serving. It was cruel.

“What kind of friend would do this?”

, DataTimes