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Teen accused in school stabbing says real killer is 'out there'

E-mail|Link February 8, 2010 02:08 PM

By Travis Anderson, Globe Correspondent, and John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

WOBURN -- The teenager accused of murdering a classmate inside Lincoln-Sudbury High School told a friend he was being "persecuted'' because he tried to help the murder victim, and also said he was upset the real killer was "out there.''

John Odgren is charged with stabbing 15-year-old James F. Alenson to death inside a school bathroom on Jan. 19, 2007, a crime Middlesex prosecutors contend was committed without provocation by Odgren, a slightly built freshman who did not know Alenson.

Odgren was 16 at the time of the attack but is being tried as an adult. He has pleaded not guilty.

Today, Odgren's voice was heard in Middlesex Superior Court as prosecutors played recordings of conversations between Odgren and family and friends since he was ordered held without bail. Odgren attorneys have opposed using the tapes Supreme Judicial Court and fought all the way to the state's highest court, but lost last year.

In one of the recordings, Odgren told an unidentified friend that he did not kill Alenson. He said he was being "persecuted'' by authorities because he stayed in the bathroom after Alenson was attacked.

Odgren then tells the friend he is frustrated.

"It's just hard being locked up in here, known that he's out there,'' Odgren said.

Odgren suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism, and defense attorneys have indicated they will argue he is not guilty of first degree murder because of his mental status. Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr.'s office sought the tapes to blunt the use of the insanity defense.

During the session today, about 90 minutes of conversations Odgren has had with relatives and friends was played in court while Odgren's parents and relatives of Alenson listened.

In one of the calls, Odgren apparently reached home during a family celebration. He was placed on speaker phone and began telling a story that was often interrupted by the sound of his mother's laughter. "

"Thanks, Mom,'' he said. "You are my laugh track.''

Odgren's comment about being frustrated was one of the rare instances where he made a direct reference to the crime that he is charged with committing. Some of the recordings were made while Odgren was being held at the Plymouth County Jail where people are warned by a voice on the telephone that the conversations were being recorded by law enforcement.

In the conversations, Odgren repeatedly joked about the fact the conversations were being recorded, telling one person authorities want to "make sure I'm not accepting shipments for Soviet nukes or some (expletive).''