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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Teenage killers chatty on ride to prison

Associated Press The Spokesman-Review

POCATELLO, Idaho – Two teens exchanged polite conversation on their ride to prison just after being sentenced to life behind bars without parole for killing a classmate following trials where they attempted to blame each other.

Torey Adamcik and Brian Draper could have requested separate cars or a barrier to separate them in the Bannock County sheriff’s van during the ride to the Idaho State Correction Institution in Kuna, near Boise, on Friday. Instead, they sat next to each other and chatted.

“They asked me a couple of times if I could let them go. ‘We are just stupid kids. Can’t you let us go?’ ” said Lt. K.G. Fonnesbeck of the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office, who drove them.

Draper and Adamcik were convicted in separate trials of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder earlier this year in the slaying of 16-year-old Cassie Jo Stoddart.

They were arrested last Sept. 27, five days after investigators say Stoddart was stabbed as many as 30 times while housesitting for relatives in northeast Bannock County.

All three were 16-year-old juniors at Pocatello High School at the time. Draper and Adamcik are now 17.

The two hadn’t socialized much with anyone since being arrested, said Fonnesbeck.

“It was a little like a class reunion,” Fonnesbeck said. “Basically they told each other they had no animosity toward each other.”

He said that, as the drive continued, Draper and Adamcik talked about religion and the events that have them spending their lives in prison.

“A comment they made is, who would have ever thought that three days out of their lives would have an effect on them the rest of their lives,” Fonnesbeck told the Idaho State Journal.

He said that once they reached the freeway exit to the prison the mood changed.

“You could sense they were getting a little more nervous. When you could see the yard, it got a little more real,” Fonnesbeck said. The two are being held in the reception and diagnostic unit to be evaluated.

“It takes two to four weeks to evaluate new inmates,” said Jeff Ray, a department spokesman. “They undergo psychological evaluations, physical evaluations, and their educational needs are assessed.”

He said that process will determine where they will be placed in the Idaho Department of Correction’s system.

He said inmates who are considered vulnerable are segregated from the rest of the population for their safety.