THIS IS INSANE
2003-06-20 | 8:40 a.m.

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Jason Sweeney had money in his pocket and plans to see his teenage sweetheart when he headed out the door on the last Friday in May.

For a 16-year-old from a blue-collar section of Philadelphia, the end of the work week couldn't have seemed much brighter. But he never made it back home that night.

According to police, Sweeney's girlfriend lured him to a vacant gravel path by the Delaware River where three teenage boys were waiting. They attacked Sweeney with a hammer and hatchet until his heart stopped, authorities said.

The four teens -- after a group hug -- then robbed the victim, dividing up the $500 that Sweeney had earned at his construction job and went on a drug binge, police said.

"We took Sweeney's wallet and split up the money, and we partied beyond redemption," Dominic Coia, 18, told detectives, according to a transcript of his June 3 confession.

Coia, his younger brother, Nicholas, 16, and Sweeney's friend, Edward "Eddie" Batzig Jr., 16, are charged with first-degree murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. Sweeney's girlfriend, Justina Morley, 15, is also charged with murder but is too young to be executed.

The brutal nature of the crime stunned even the veteran city judge assigned to Tuesday's preliminary hearing.

"This is something out of the Dark Ages," Judge Seamus McCaffery said in upholding the murder charges against the four. "I'm not so sure we can call ourselves a civilized society when stuff like this happens."

A makeshift memorial stands Wednesday near the site where Jason Sweeney was beaten to death in the Fishtown area of Philadelphia.

In the hours before the slaying, as Sweeney changed out of his work clothes and showered at his family's cozy brick rowhouse in Fishtown, the defendants met nearby in Batzig's basement.

"We must have listened to 'Helter Skelter' about 42 times," Dominic Coia told police, referring to the Beatles song that also fascinated serial killer Charles Manson.

In 1969, Manson and his followers killed nine people in the Los Angeles area in what prosecutors said was an attempt to start a race war that Manson believed was prophesied in "Helter Skelter."

Sweeney's mother, Dawn, works as a bank teller while her husband, Paul, who grew up in Fishtown, runs a small construction company. Their son had been working there after dropping out of 10th grade, with plans to join the Navy when he turned 17 next month.

Jason had spent his 16th birthday with Batzig at Dawn Sweeney's parents' house in Florida. Afterward, Dawn Sweeney told her son to end the friendship. She thought Batzig was heading down the wrong path, she said.

"Jason came from a home that none of them had," Dawn Sweeney said Wednesday about her son's alleged assailants. "We love our kids and our kids love us. We enjoy spending time together."

The Coias had been raised by their father since their mother left when they were young, said defense lawyer Charles Mirarchi III, who hopes to negotiate a plea for Nicholas, his client. Lee Mandell, a lawyer for Dominic Coia, said he will try to have his client's confession suppressed.

All four defendants are charged as adults, but defense lawyer William Brennan hopes to have Morley's case moved to juvenile court. She has a history of depression and had been on medication for about a year, Brennan said.

In his police statement, Batzig said he struck his friend in the head with the hatchet four or five times, as hard as he could. Philadelphia Medical Examiner Ian Hood testified that the attackers broke all but one of the bones in Sweeney's face.

After the murder, Dominic Coia told police that the group bought heroin, cocaine and the tranquilizer Xanax with the victim's money, according to his police statement.

Melissa Sweeney, the dead teen's 15-year-old sister, said juvenile crime was not unique to places like Fishtown.

"Everywhere you go, you find kids like this," she said Wednesday as she and her mother played a board game in their living room. "It's just a question of how much the neighborhood can hide the bad."

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