PRAY FOR US SINNERS. The Hail Mary Murder

Paperback. The true story of five middle-class High School kids - killing for kicks. They were as different as six teenagers could be. They ranged from 14 to 18 years of age. One was an altar boy and Eagle Scout; another was a high-school dropout who worshipped the Mafia. Nevertheless, Robert Solimine remained the perpetual outsider, the kid too nerdy to ever fit in. But what started as cruel but not unusual ways to punish one of their own escalated into an unthinkable plot for murder. Finally, while all six boys sat in parked cars next to their high school, Solimine was convinced to recite the Hail Mary - and then garroted with an extension cord from behind. Suddenly, the plan sketchily, even jokingly, conceived by a group of seemingly typical suburban New Jersey youths had become an irretrievable act of monstrous evil, a crime that horrified the nation. From the reporter who alone covered both trials in the Hail Mary murder case comes a riveting true crime story - and a shocking expose of the violence simmering beneath the deceptively placid surface of the American teenage dream. Illus. 453pp. mass market p/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. Lightly browned pp. lightly marked covers. Vg.