Boys Plead Innocent In Trestle Death

Five teens have pleaded innocent to charges of second-degree murder filed in the death of a youth pushed off a railroad trestle on a dare.

They entered the pleas Thursday and were ordered held on $250,000 bail each, said spokesman Dan Donohoe in the King County prosecutor’s office. A pretrial hearing was scheduled for Jan. 24.

Charged in the Jan. 2 death of Michael Schuerhoff, 18, is Brian M. Schrader, 17, of Mountlake Terrace, accused of actually pushing Schuerhoff off the 36-foot abandoned trestle near Bothell into the Sammamish Slough, where he drowned.

Prosecutors say Schrader was goaded by the four others, who offered him $30 and an ounce of marijuana to shove Schuerhoff. The other defendants are Tyler G. Wheaton, Lawrence R. Edinger, Benjamin A. Drake and Steven M. Garza.