The style of writing in this piece is terrible.

Lines like: "Jared and Matt quickly befriended some other guys from Carousel Park, all shy, awkward 17-year-olds a few merit badges short of Eagle Scout who had recently begun to mature."

and:

"It was almost dark when they finished digging the hole and darker still in the hole."

If the intent of this piece was to convey the same juvenile fascination and appropriation of crime film and fiction, then mission accomplished.

I wonder if he'll still think that way in 30 years, knowing he's still got five to go and that once he's out his life will essentially be gone. Cold-blooded little fucker.

I agree only with the criticism of the line about being a few merit badges short of an Eagle Scout. Otherwise this article was spot on, and horrifying. I'm certainly not one to go around bemoaning the state of today's youth, or a member of the "what about the children?" crowd. Still, this article was well written, and well states and reflects the vapid, senseless, pointless sense of this awful act---and of the perspectives of so many kids (in the suburban hells of Vegas and everwhere else) today. I spent plenty of time in a drinking park (not hill) in my younger days (when I was 15 or so, and I'm only 34 now), and this kind of behavior is utterly foreign and frightening to me. Don't shoot the messenger. No one could read this article and think it glorifies or condones such an atrocity. (There is one factual error: at one point it confuses Jared with Johnson.)

I get the impression that the boys in this story were seeking to belong to some kind of group with a clearly defined purpose. I suppose that is what attracts boys to gangs, or gangster films that romanticize gangs -this sense of having a mission and being accepted. I suspect a lot of kids who are marginal in their communities have a great thirst to fit in somehow and be accepted by someone, but they also have a competing anger toward the respected establishment. This of course ignites in them the urge to build some kind of rival community, one that is meant to attack the hypocrisy of the status quo but that usually just ends up mirroring it. Especially since these boys suffered the absence of a father figure they were seeking an understanding of what it means to be a man and to exist with other men in brotherhood. Girls do the same thing of course, that is, they seek to define and belong to the club of "womanhood." I remember back in the early nineties in Indiana, the Shandra Sharer case, where group of girls ganged up in essentially the same way against another girl. How can our country connect these kids on the verge of adulthood to some sense of purpose and belonging, in such a way that it serves as a meaningful rite of passage for adolescents? Can it be done in a culture that is deeply stratified amongst race, gender and class? I see these kids as the canaries in the coal mines, for they are simply acting out in extreme ways the behavior that the adults around them exhibit in subtler forms every day. Perhaps if we adults started acting more like responsible grown ups our kids might start growing up more responsibly.

Acceptance my ass. This is about the dehumanzing effects of our "culture" and the coarseness and lack of empathy brought to us by yes, conservatism, capitalism and all that they stand for.

And you writing critics shut the F**K up. Every letters collection has at least a few of you freaks who think it your job to play English instructor for a day. if you're so great maybe you'll get published somewhere.

Sorry, but I found the writing style distracting to the story at hand. It does matter.

I also find it laughable that you lament the coarseness of our culture just a few sentences before you state "And you writing critics shut the F**K up."

Pot, meet kettle.

One correction: Anthony "The Ant" Spilotro wound up in a cornfield in Indiana, not Iowa.

What a chilling and well-written story. (On that latter note, I disagree with the comments made regarding the descriptions so, yeah, be silent all you high school English teachers.) I was impressed with how much detail the writer wove into the story. Great researching.

it was almost funny (though that may be only because I think Joe Pesci sounds funny):

"Got a lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes...See, if you don't have the hole dug, you're talking about a half-hour or 45 minutes of digging. And who knows who's going to be coming along in that time? Before you know it, you've got to dig a few more holes."

You know what? Fuck Baker for ruining that gem of movie quote for me, for taking it as a gameplan rather than Tony Spilotro's nihilistic rumination on murder, and for wantonly shooting his friend. I realize of course that this is nothing new (Leopold and Loeb, for instance), but the profoundly dissolute nature of such crimes leaves everybody involved hurt in one way or another. It also leaves the readers feeling a bit dirty, I think, as they become a part of it, too.

This type of leering infotainment is what I expect from crappy TV "news" shows like 20/20. I couldn't help hearing the queasily melodramatic intonation of my least favorite Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison as I read this piece. I have to say I expect more of Salon.

This is the kind of poorly written, salacious/sensationalist shock pseudo-journalism that I come to salon to avoid.

Matt learned from those movies that the wuss will always roll over to save himself from doing a dime in San Quentin: Fredo in "Godfather 2." Henry Hill in "Goodfellas." Frank in "Scarface." Mr. Blonde in "Reservoir Dogs." Practically every character but Tony in "The Sopranos."

Sorry but I don't remember Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen's character) "rolling over" -- if anything, the back story in "Reservoir Dogs" has him doing time because he wouldn't roll over, which is why Nice Guy Eddie talks about "making good" on the family's commitment to him for keeping his mouth shut.