MARIETTA, Ohio – A sixth-grader charged with the shotgun slayings of his aunt and grandmother was rambunctious, played in back yards with neighborhood children and enjoyed sports.
“He was an ornery little fella,” said Jack Norman, a former neighbor. “He was active but he was a normal 12-year-old boy.”
Bryan Christopher Sturm told police he huffed gasoline the day of the killings, reloaded twice during the shootings and later washed his jeans and showered to destroy evidence.
Sturm has denied two charges of delinquency by aggravated murder and is to go on trial Feb. 14. If convicted, he could be sentenced to state custody until he’s 21. State law prevents anyone younger than 14 from being charged as an adult.
The accusations facing the boy are rare. According to the FBI’s annual crime report, only 12 people ages 9 to 12 and 813 people under the age of 18 committed murder across the country in 2003.
Not much is known about Sturm, who authorities said split time between his parents’ house and the mobile home his aunt and grandmother shared on a grassy hill near this southeast Ohio city. His parents, Bryan and Tammy, worked on oil wells and had to be away for up to two weeks at times.
On Nov. 22 at that trailer filled with family photographs, detectives say Sturm told them he became upset with his grandmother, Nancy Tidd, 61, for always putting him down.
He aimed the shotgun at her in the living room, when his aunt, Emma Tidd, 40, grabbed it and was shot accidentally in the head, he told detectives.
Then he reloaded, shooting his grandmother with the second shot after the weapon misfired, detectives say.
Afterward, Sturm told detectives, he put the shotgun in the laundry room and kicked the shells into the kitchen to try to make it appear the shots were fired from there.
He ran from the house, taking off his shirt in the woods before he hitched a ride into nearby Lower Salem, where his parents live, according to the statement. Police arrested him at home that night.
Sturm initially told detectives he left the trailer after arguing with his grandmother. Detectives say he eventually admitted shooting the two after his grandmother told him he wouldn’t amount to anything.
But Detective Lt. Jeff Seevers said Sturm’s account doesn’t match the crime scene or the autopsy report. He declined to be specific about any discrepancies.
“We still believe he’s minimized some of what happened,” said Seevers, speaking before Washington County Juvenile Court Judge Tim Williams ordered parties in the case not to talk publicly about it.
Detectives who interviewed Sturm described him as lost and said he gave them “a seven-mile stare,” according to Seevers.
Norman, a Baptist minister, said he never had any problems with Sturm’s family.
“These are good people,” he said. “They are not villains and this kid is not a villain. I feel really bad about the whole thing.”
Neighbors in Lower Salem are reluctant to talk about the Sturms or any of the people in town. They mostly keep to themselves, stopping at the local convenience store to talk about school, church or hunting.
Near where the slayings occurred, trailers mingle with homes and most of the residents have large green yards, some with barns or separate garages. Darkness comes in quickly, and the roar of Interstate 77 is constant.
Before the shootings, Sturm missed school and inhaled gasoline fumes, then got a ride to his grandmother’s home, where he practiced target shooting at a beer can, police say.
Seevers said detectives aren’t sure if Sturm was under the influence of the gasoline at the time of the shootings. Symptoms include slurred speech and loss of coordination.
Detectives also are uncertain about the boy’s relationship with his grandmother.
“She was probably the caring person of the entire family,” Seevers said. “I can tell you that she had dozens of family photographs hung up throughout her house, in the living room and the bedroom, so she very much cared for her entire family.”
Seevers said Sturm got the shotgun out of a locked gun cabinet in the trailer without permission. The gun belonged to John Francis Russell, Nancy Tidd’s boyfriend.
Seevers said Russell took care of Nancy Tidd, who had health problems, and Emma Tidd, who had mental disabilities. Authorities would not elaborate on those problems.
Prosecutors are trying to have Sturm declared a serious youthful offender, meaning he could serve the adult sentence of 20 years to life in prison if he committed a violent offense between his 14th and 21st birthdays or it appeared he was not rehabilitated.
