Voices of boys played at trial

Eakin expected to testify today

EPHRATA — Like ghosts from the past, 12-year-old Evan Savoie and Jake Eakin both testified Thursday in Grant County Superior Court at the first-degree murder trial of Savoie, now 15.

Their high-pitched childlike voices, captured during an interview with police investigators a day after their companion, 13-year-old Craig Sorger, was brutally murdered, gave the jury an opportunity to travel back in time to Feb. 16, 2003.

The day before, Sorger's body was found by police with 34 stab wounds about three hours after he went to play with the two other boys at Ephrata's Oasis Park.

Savoie is being tried as an adult for Sorger's murder. He pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces up to 26 years in prison.

Eakin, Savoie's former co-defendant in connection with Sorger's death, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder by complicity in April 2005. He was sentenced to 14 years and is expected to testify against his friend today.

In the recorded interviews, both boys sounded composed as they spoke with then-detective John Phillips and officer Joe Downey with the Ephrata Police Department.

They both told police they had been playing tackle tag before heading into a wooded section of the park to build a fort.

The boys told police they were all climbing a tree above the fort. Sorger saw a branch he wanted for the fort, reached out for it, then fell. He was about 8 to 10 feet off the ground when he fell. He landed awkwardly.

"He tried to rip a stick out and fell," Savoie said. "His legs were the last to hit."

Sorger made "more of a grunt like he was mad or something," Savoie said of the sound of his playmate hitting the ground.

Savoie told police he tried to help, but realized Sorger was seriously hurt and bleeding.

"When he fell I was the first person to jump down to help him," Savoie said. "I said, 'Craig, Craig.'"

Eakin's taped interview was largely similar.

"Evan jumped down, I climbed down the tree cause I wasn't going to jump," Eakin said.

They told police that Savoie checked his injured friend for a pulse and to see if he was breathing.

"His eyes were like weird looking," Eakin told police.

"Evan put his head up to (Sorger's) heart," Eakin said. "He says his heart's still beeping."

They said Savoie's clothing was bloodied trying to revive Sorger. Scared, they ran home, sinking Savoie's sweatshirt and shirt into a nearby pond on the way.

"I got up and I was freaked out, so we started running," Savoie said. "I was just paranoid and scared."

A day earlier, though, Eakin and Savoie told police and their parents that Sorger was headed home the last time they saw him and doing well.

Savoie's mother, Holly Parent, confronted her son the day after the murder about his wet and muddy shoes. He then admitted there was more to their story. She called police.

The boys were then taken to the police station by their parents for the interviews.

In the interviews, investigators are heard asking the same questions again and again after both boys gave their account of what happened to Sorger.

"Nothing else happened?" Phillips asked the boys during the interviews.

"Anything else happen?" Phillips repeated. "Is there anything else?"

Again and again, both Eakin and Savoie calmly said no.

"Not being truthful a second time, that would be bad," Phillips said. "That would make me suspicious."

Phillips asked Eakin later in the roughly 10-minute interview if the boy knew what an autopsy was. Eakin answered incorrectly.

Phillips explained: "It's important that if something happened differently than what you're telling me, (the autopsy doctor will) find out."

"OK, I told you about everything," Eakin's small voice said confidently.

Grant County Deputy Prosecutor Ed Owens spent most of the day presenting jurors with police photographs of the park and crime scene.

Owens presented nearly a dozen knives and blades taken from Savoie's home and the family's van.

Then, prosecutors presented a jacket, a sweatshirt, an undershirt and other clothing police say were worn by the two suspects the day Sorger was killed.