So why had Brogan bonded with this second father figure, so tightly that he would help him commit murders?

Over the summer, I wrote a series of letters to Brogan in prison, asking him questions about his life, his relationship with Beasley, and what he was thinking and feeling during the four months the murders were taking place. His responses arrived after the story had already gone to press, but I have reprinted portions of them below. Some of the answers are drawn from multiple letters; taken together, they reinforce my belief that Brogan is a genuinely tragic figure, a 16-year-old boy dragged into a situation he could neither understand nor control.

How did you feel about your father when you were growing up?

I feared my father most of my life, almost as though he were God. My father cared very much, though he had trouble showing it, as all of the men in my family, including myself, do. He was impatient, angry, and sometimes violent, but he was a single parent who did his best with the limited means he was given. Now, where my mother was supposed to be the balance to the tension--my mother was instead caught in the mix of a drug addiction that destroyed her life and left her unreliable as a mother.

The year this all happened was when I began to appreciate my parents for who they were, faults and all. My mother and I had put the past behind us and were now best friends, and my father and I were getting there: he was mellowing with age and I was giving him fewer reasons to be angry with me. Life was turning out all right.

Then the murders began.

Did Rich Beasley feel like family to you?

Beasley was my father without the anger. He was calm, rational, and just, a family counselor of sorts to whom any of us could go for spiritual or worldly advice. He had a jolly laugh, a beard, a belly, and even carried candy in his pocket. There was a period when I was younger that I was convinced he was Santa Claus.

When he became involved in the street ministry, he was the first person I called when my mother disappeared on a drug binge. At that point, he would either go looking for her himself or bring me with him. He also kept me patient with my mother, for it was more than once I wanted to strike her like a child for leaving my younger sister alone while on a binge.

Beasley saw all these things in my life, and was there to see me through all of them. At the time, I thought he was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Even now, I can't say "I wish most of all I'd never met him.'" I guess I wish I had been able to see what was coming and stop it before it happened somehow.

During the trial, your attorneys hinted at a sexual relationship between you and Beasley. Can you comment on that?

I can't exactly take offense to such questions, because my prior relationship with Beasley was unusual, but it goes back to the uncle-nephew relationship we had. Another thing: I've always preferred the company of older people. The fact is, though, that there was nothing sexual about my relationship with Beasley whatsoever.