On a September afternoon three years ago, Juan Carlos Chavez was picking up building supplies while Jimmy Ryce was returning from school to his south Miami-Dade County home.

After his errand at Home Depot, the handyman drove his truck past a group of young boys clad in underwear who were swimming in a canal. He took a mental picture of them.

That image was in Chavez's mind later when he confronted Jimmy, 9, at gunpoint, Chavez said in his confession, which was read on Wednesday in his kidnap-murder trial.

"I asked him whether he wanted to die," Chavez said.

"No," Jimmy told Chavez, staring him in the face.

Jurors, as well as Jimmy's parents, appeared numbed by the grisly details of Chavez's confession, which was read by Miami-Dade Police Detective Luis Estopinan. Chavez, 31, is charged with abducting the boy on Sept. 11, 1995, and then taking him to a horse farm where he allegedly sodomized and shot him. According to his confession, Chavez then dismembered Jimmy's body and buried the parts in concrete planters.

The confession, which Chavez gave to police about midnight on Dec. 8, 1995, is the foundation of the case against him. It reinforces key physical evidence, including the .38-caliber murder weapon and Jimmy's book bag, which were found in his trailer.

As the horrific final days of their son were described to jurors, Don and Claudine Ryce clung to each other and tried to contain their emotions. During a recess, a female juror gave a sympathetic smile to the Ryces before they left the courtroom escorted by three Miami-Dade assistant state attorneys.

For Claudine Ryce, the reading of Chavez's confession coincided with her 56th birthday. And it was entered into evidence on the eve of the third anniversary of Jimmy's disappearance.

"My birthdays aren't so nice because they come so close to the day he was taken," she told reporters. "My birthday now reminds me of losing my Jimmy."

Jimmy, a good student who loved playing Little League, became a household name in South Florida after his abduction. For about three months, FBI agents and police searched for him.

The case broke on Dec. 6, 1995. Susan Scheinhaus, Chavez's employer, suspected that he had stolen her .38-caliber gun, so she went into his trailer. That's where she found the gun and Jimmy's canvas backpack. She called police.

More than two days later, Chavez admitted to kidnapping and killing the boy.

According to that confession, Chavez took Jimmy in his truck to the horse farm, about seven miles from the Scheinhaus ranch. There, he forced Jimmy inside his trailer.

"I didn't know how to face him. I didn't know what to tell him," Chavez said in his confession.

Chavez soon asked Jimmy to take off his clothing. The boy was sobbing.

"He asked me if I was going to kill him," Chavez said.

He sodomized the boy, then told him to get dressed.

According to the confession, Chavez started to drive the boy back to where he had abducted him. But, upon seeing police in the area, he returned to the trailer.

"[Jimmy) was nervous because he thought I was going to kill him," Chavez said.

Finally, the boy dashed for the front door. Chavez said he pulled out the pistol and shot him.

"It was the only way to prevent him from going out," he said.

Chavez told detectives he slapped the boy's face to stir him.

"I heard the sound of something that was losing air," he said.

Chavez said he wrapped the boy in sheets, stuck his body in a metal tank and put it in the back of his gray pickup truck. He said he took the metal container to the Scheinhaus ranch, where he hid it in his red van.

On the night of Sept. 11, 1995, Chavez said, he returned to the truck to retrieve Jimmy's backpack. He took it to the trailer he used and left it there.

In a confused state, Chavez waited a few days before deciding to remove the body from his van. He used a stick with a sharp metal edge to chop up the boy's body and placed it in three concrete planters. He threw the tank in a canal.

As he made his confessional statement, Chavez was asked by detectives why he didn't toss out Jimmy's book bag.

"It would have hurt me to throw it away," Chavez said. "It would have bothered me to throw it away."

The interrogation lasted 54 hours. Before confessing, Chavez denied knowing anything about Jimmy's disappearance.

But, gradually, he began talking about the murder. Still, he didn't fill in all the horrific details that emerged during his ultimate confession.

In fact, Chavez had given a different confession halfway through his interrogation. On Wednesday morning, jurors listened impassively to parts of that initial confession, in which he said he accidentally hit and killed Jimmy with his truck and then hid the body. In the afternoon, they became transfixed when they heard transcripts of Chavez's later confession.

Prosecutors are expected to finish calling their witnesses by Friday.