Victim's mother: 'That's who did it'

Lisa Sorger blamed Evan Savoie for her son's murder from the beginning

EPHRATA ‹ Lisa Sorger on Thursday provided the most emotionally charged testimony yet in the first-degree murder trial of Evan Savoie, who stands accused of killing her 13-year-old son Craig Sorger on Feb. 15, 2003, at Ephrata's Oasis Park.

Savoie, 15, of Ephrata, was 12 years old when he was charged with Craig Sorger's murder. He is being tried as an adult in Grant County Superior Court and faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted.

Lisa Sorger's family watched tearfully as she described the son she lost.

"Would you describe for us what Craig was like?" Monty Hormel, Savoie's defense attorney, asked.

Lisa Sorger quietly cried for several minutes before whispering "sorry."

"Craig could really be a sweet kid," she began. "He had a great sense of humor."

She called him "my snuggle bug," adding he was always affectionate.

"He would just jump into your lap whenever he wanted, no matter how big he was," she said.

Craig Sorger was a special education student, but his mother said he could "make the lights work on a broken VCR."

She never knew how he did it.

He loved playing video games and with Hot Wheels.

"He could figure out most of the video games we had," Lisa Sorger said. "Most everyone else couldn't figure out how to play them."

He celebrated his 13th birthday days before he was murdered.

The day three years ago that Lisa Sorger thinks about so often was gray and drizzly. She told her son to stay close to home when two boys, Savoie and Jake Eakin, came by a little after 3 p.m. to see if he could play. She said he could only play for a few minutes. He just got over a cold and she wanted to run errands soon.

Lisa Sorger told jurors in testimony last week she'd never seen the two boys before they came knocking on the door. But Craig Sorger's brother, Keith, who was 11 years old at the time, recognized the two boys stopping by the family's trailer at Oasis Park.

"Evan and Jake came over a couple of times," Keith Sorger testified on the first day of the trial last week. They had all played together about five times, he recalled.

To Keith Sorger, the two boys standing outside in the rain wearing hooded sweatshirts weren't strangers, but they didn't ask if he could play that day. They asked for his older brother, who was excited to go.

Reluctantly, Lisa Sorger agreed to let Craig Sorger play with the two boys.

She wouldn't see him alive again, she testified. More than three hours later she would rush by a police officer in a wooded and secluded area of Oasis Park to where Craig Sorger's lifeless body lay.

Hours earlier, she began searching for her son when he failed to return home as she instructed. Lisa and Keith Sorger were able to eventually find Savoie's residence, she said, where they learned Eakin and Savoie had returned around 4:25 p.m. Craig Sorger was no longer with them.

Savoie, she was told by his stepfather, returned home without his new sweatshirt.   

She really became worried as the day ended and daylight faded, because she knew her son was afraid of the dark.

She eventually called 911. Ephrata Police Department officers responded to the park, where they met Lisa Sorger. She told police her son had been missing since he left to play with two other boys.

"At the time, I thought they had tied him up with Evan's missing sweatshirt and drowned him in the pond," she testified.

Officer Joe Downey, though, rushed through the park with a flashlight and, within about five minutes, he found Craig Sorger.

During her testimony, Lisa Sorger said she knew what happened when she finally got to officer Downey and her dead son.

"I said 'Oh my God, they beat him to death,'" she recalled.

"Did the police tell you he had been beaten to death?" defense attorney Hormel asked.

Lisa Sorger said they had not.

"So those were your conclusions?" he continued.

"Yes," she said.

After seeing her son dead, Lisa Sorger pointed the finger at Savoie, who had now returned to the park with his mother and stepfather to search for his missing companion.

"I said, 'that's who did it,'" she recalled saying at the scene when she saw Savoie.

Last week, Eakin, also now 15, a key witness for prosecutors, testified against Savoie. Eakin's account places most of the blame on Savoie, claiming he initiated the deadly attack by dropping a basketball-sized rock on Craig Sorger's head.

An autopsy showed the victim died from more than 30 stab wounds to the neck, head and body. He also suffered about 20 blunt force injuries.

Eakin also admitted to his part, saying he struck Craig Sorger on the head and legs with a tree branch, following Savoie's bloody attack.

In April 2005, Eakin pleaded guilty to complicity to second-degree murder for his role in the killing. Eakin was sentenced to more than 14 years.

For the first eight days of the trial, Lisa Sorger has not been able to be in the courtroom because she remained on the witness list, missing testimony by Eakin and others.

After her testimony Thursday, she can stay in the courtroom and watch the remainder of the trial, including testimony from Eakin.

Recalled as a defense witness, Eakin is scheduled to begin answering questions at 9 a.m. today.