The Murder of Chris Lane

Things to consider

How do you improve your chances of avoiding or surviving a drive-by shooting?
- Be mindful of a car circling the neighborhood.
- Keep a little bit back from the road.
- Be mindful of cars moving slower than normal traffic or faster than normal traffic.
- Know the difference between cover and concealment
- The most likely firing points are generally going to be any window except the driver’s window.
  - Driving and shooting accurately is a bit difficult.
- When you are out running try to be on the side of the road where you are closer to the driver’s side of any passing car.
  - You have better odds if there is only one “firing port” aimed at you as opposed to two.
- Be able to move quickly to get behind cover.

From http://mobile.news.com.au/national-news/victoria/two-teens-charged-with-murdering-melbourne-baseball-player-chris-lane/story-fnii5sms-1226700172461

Accused teen killer on Vine

15 year old James Edwards uploaded this video to Vine. Courtesy Vine

Replay: Accused teen killer on Vine

THE teenage “thugs” charged over the murder of Melbourne baseballer Chris Lane “will pay”, says a US prosecutor.

District Attorney Jason Hicks said outside the first court hearing in the Oklahoma town of Duncan that he was “going to do everything I can to ensure these three thugs pay for what they did to Christopher Lane”.

“To those friends of ours in Australia, we would say to you this is not Duncan, Oklahoma,” Mr Hicks said.

“This is not Stephens County, Oklahoma.”

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Two boys who allegedly shot dead an Australian baseballer have been charged with first degree murder.

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Stephens County Courthouse heard how one of the boys accused of murdering Lane, 22, danced and laughed as he was taken into a police station to be charged after the killing on Friday.

James Edwards, 15, was treating the murder as a joke, Mr Hicks told the hearing.

Mr Hicks told the court that Edwards has previously been in contact with police, and that he had “an attitude of total disregard for law enforcement” when he was being charged over Lane’s death.

Revealed: Private lives of the accused

How the world press covered the shooting

“He thinks it’s funny, and it’s all a joke,” Mr Hicks said.

“I believe he is a threat to the community.”

Mr Hicks said Edwards kept a probation appointment for another matter at the courthouse just minutes after Lane was killed.

Sarah Harper remembers slain boyfriend

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Sarah Harper remembers slain boyfriend

The girlfriend of a murdered Australian baseball player Chris Lane says she will cherish the memories their time together. Courtesy Channel…

“He was cold, callous and that was the demeanour that we saw throughout the course of the investigation,” Mr Hicks said.

Edwards and Chancey Luna, 16, were charged with first-degree murder and face life in prison if convicted.

Mr Hicks said that Luna had refused to co-operate with police.

They were both refused bail.

James Edwards, 15, charged with first-degree murder.

James Edwards takes a selfie.

Chancey Luna, 16, charged with first-degree murder.

Chancey Luna.

Michael Jones, 17, was charged with using a vehicle to facilitate the discharge of a weapon and accessory after the fact of murder in the first degree.

Bail for Jones, who is assisting prosecutors and police, was set at $US1 million ($A1.1 million).

The three will be tried as adults.

They were dressed in orange prison jumpsuits and had their legs shackled during the brief appearance.

Michael Jones, 17, charged with being an accessory to the killing.

The court was told that the three boys spotted Lane jogging along a road in an upper-class area of Duncan on Friday.

They got into a car driven by Jones, drove behind Lane and then Luna shot him with .22 calibre revolver in the back, the court was told.

“The information we have was this was the person who pulled the trigger,” the prosecutor said of Luna.

Edwards and Luna did not show any emotion, but Jones broke down in tears after Mr Hicks said he was looking at a “very, very lengthy prison sentence”.

“I didn’t pull the trigger,” Jones said.

Chris Lane. Picture: Essendon Baseball Club

Sarah Harper and Chris Lane.

The courtroom was packed and divided.

In the front row sat about 20 family and friends of Sarah Harper, Lane’s longtime American girlfriend. Ms Harper, 23, was not in court.

Cindy Harper told the Herald Sun her daughter was at home “trying to relax”.

Another Harper family member said “this is surreal” as they were taken out a side door of the court building by sheriffs.

A few rows behind was a distraught Jennifer Luna, coming to grips with a nightmare 12 months that saw the death of her husband in a motorcycle accident and now the prospect her son could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Jennifer Luna, right, the mother of murder suspect Chancey Luna, outside court.

Jennifer Luna. Photo: Andrew Quilty.

On the right hand side of the courtroom was James Edwards Sr, refusing to believe his son was a killer.

“Yes, I do,” Mr Edwards replied outside court when asked if he believed his son, who hoped to be an Olympic wrestler, was innocent.

In the back left area of the court was Jones’s parents and supporters, including his pregnant girlfriend.

She sobbed in her seat, eventually leaving the court before Jones came in.

Edwards and Luna did not appear to be fazed during their court appearance.

Even when Ms Luna stood up in court to answer an administrative question from Judge Jerry Herberger, her son didn’t acknowledge her.

Edwards didn’t look for family members.

James Edwards Sr believes his 15-year-old son is innocent.

The sister of accused murder James Edwards is comforted by a friend, left.

Asked if she had a message for the Lane family outside court, Ms Luna told the Herald Sun: “I feel sorry for them, my heart goes out to them, it really does, but that’s my baby too.

“My boy was a baby too.”

Luna said there were no guns at her house, and her son was at home playing X-Box with her soon-to-be stepson when she came home from work last Friday after finishing at 3pm.

It comes a day after Duncan Police Chief Danny Ford said he had secured the confession of Jones who had summoned investigators to his jail cell and claimed they were bored “so they decided to kill somebody”.

Chief Ford said the teens had no motive other than to ”make a name for themselves”.

Prosecutor Jason Hicks, right, talks to the media following the teenagers’ court appearance.

Lane was staying with Ms Harper in Duncan before going back to Oklahoma’s East Central University where he majored in finance and was the catcher on the team’s baseball team.

Ms Harper yesterday revealed her heartbreak at losing her “best friend”, and parents of the accused protested their innocence.

She also told the Herald Sun that she didn’t know what punishment would be appropriate for the three teens.

Lane, who grew up in Oak Park in Melbourne’s north, had only been back in the US for three days after an eight-week break in Australia with Ms Harper.

“I don’t want them to have any future that Chris wasn’t able to have as well,” Ms Harper said of the accused yesterday.

“It’s been pretty rough. It’s been hard knowing he was taken so close to home, let alone taken in the way he was. To be pointed out like that …”

Ms Harper said she and Lane had joked about America’s soft gun laws before he was shot.

“He wasn’t a fan of guns,” she said.

Sarah Harper next to a memorial along the road where Chris Lane was killed.

A memorial to Chris Lane near where he was shot.

She fondly described Lane as a smart, kind and curious guy who would “do anything for anybody”.

Ms Harper, also a talented sportswoman, said she and Lane just “meshed together” within weeks of meeting at college in Oklahoma in August 2009.

“It was more of a personality (we had in common), not so much interests. He was intellectual, into world news, and I found that quite boring,” she said.

“He really wanted to travel more. He loved the idea of seeing the world.”

Ms Harper said she would come back to Australia to farewell Lane with his family.

“I’m probably going to go back and say goodbye with the people he loved the most,” she said.

“It was a great time getting back there and seeing him in his element with all his favourite friends.

“It’s going to be hard going back but it’s something I need to do.

“Thank you to everyone who supported and loved Chris. I really appreciated it.”

Christopher Lane’s mother and sister.

Shocked family and friends have been trying to make sense of the tragedy.

Peter Lane paid tribute to his son and said the family was still waiting on news from the US authorities regarding the repatriation of the body.

“There is not going to be any good come out of this. It was so senseless. There was nothing he did or could have done,” Mr Lane said this week.

“It’s happened. It’s wrong and we just try and deal with it the best we can.”

Flowers and a baseball have been placed on the home plate at Essendon Baseball Club with a message.

“A wonderful young man taken too soon,” it read. “Why?”

College friend Marshall Veal added Lane had “brought light to each of us”.

“Lanes would have done anything in the world for all of us and we would do the same, he was a best friend, teammate, and most of all a Brother. We love you Laney.”

Local Bill Renfrow, who lives just metres from the intersection where Lane was shot, said Duncan locals had erected a flower memorial for him at the site of the attack.

“It’s sad to us, more than anything. It’s shocking. He was a visitor in our country,” he said.

“This is a very quiet neighbourhood, there’s never any trouble here.”

Essendon Baseball Club’s match against the University of Melbourne on Sunday will be turned into a tribute to Lane to raise money for the family.

- with Stephen Drill Andy Burns and AAP

Australian’s drive-by death ‘senseless’