The Ordinary Boys

Craig Sorger was thirteen, had autism and ADHD, and lived with his family in a trailer at Oasis Park in Ephrata, Washington. On February 15, 2003, two twelve-year-old boys, Evan Savoie and Jake Eakin, came to the door and asked whether Craig could come out. His mother, Lisa, did not know them, but she let him go.

The boys led him to a spot along a park trail and killed him there, beating him and stabbing him dozens of times. They told police Craig had fallen out of a tree. The autopsy, which counted roughly forty stab wounds and about twenty blunt-force injuries, ended that story. A judge ordered both boys tried as adults, against four psychologists who said juvenile detention could treat them.

Eakin pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2005 and was sentenced to just over fourteen years after agreeing to testify. A jury convicted Savoie of first-degree murder in April 2006, and he was sentenced to more than twenty-six years. An appeals court threw out that conviction in 2011 over closed courtroom proceedings. Savoie pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2013 and was resentenced to twenty years in March 2014. Eakin was released in 2017, Savoie in 2020.