Teenagers’ callousness shocks policemen

Press, 26 November 1981, Page 9

Teenagers’ callousness shocks policemen

NZPA Milpitas, California A teenager allegedly boasted about how he killed his 14-year-old former girlfriend and showed off her corpse to more than a dozen high-school classmates, but none of them contacted authorities, the California police said yesterday. One 1 pupil covered the body with leaves so it could not be seen from the road, and others threw stones at it, said Sergeant Ron Icely, of the police. Sergeant Gary Meeker, who also worked on the case, said he had “never seen a group of people act so callous about death in my 15 years of police work. What the hell has happened to these kids?” Authorities said Marsha Renee Conrad died of stangulation last Tuesday, but the police were not notified of the killing until two days later, 24 hours after the first group of students went to a ravine easy of the city to view the body. The police were led to the body, which was clad only in a top and white socks, after a car assembly worker heard

from friends at Milpitas High School that a corpse was in the hills near a reservoir. Anthony Jaques Broussard, aged 16, Miss Conrad’s former steady boyfriend, was arrested on Thursday as he drove back to town after viewing the body with three friends, Sergeant Icely said. Broussard was scheduled for a hearing in the Juvenile Court today to determine whether he should be prosecuted as a juvenile or as an adult. Sergeant Meeker said several pupils had told him that Broussard had boasted of the killing. Sergeant Icely, who interviewed 13 pupils who went to the site, said the youths were callous and cold, with no apparent feelings for Miss Conrad. “Their prime objective was to cover up their friend. They showed no remorse at all for the girl lying in the ravine,” he said. “These kids got their priorities all messed up. I just could not believe it. Most people who see a homicide are happy to talk about it,” said Sergeant Icely.

“If we had our way we would have filed accessory-after-the-fact charges for a couple of kids, but the District Attorney decided not to.” Mark Fowlkes, aged 16, said he was with friends at an arcade when Broussard invited him and three others to go to the ravine. “I only saw her from the back, and I knew it was her from the clothes,” he said. “I just told (Broussard) to take me home.” Mike Irvin, aged 18, a car assembly worker, notified the police of the killing. “All the kids wanted to go up and see her,” he said. “As soon as I saw it was a body and not a mannequin, I went straight to the police.” . The headmaster of Milpitas High School, Charles Perotti, said the reluctance, of pupils to report crime reflected a larger social problem. “Society in general does not want to get involved,” he said. “And some of the kids did not understand the legality of coming forward. They were afraid of being accessories;”