Mo. teen pleads guilty in Ohio drifter's death

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Mo. teen pleads guilty in Ohio drifter's death
Alan Scher Zagier, Associated Press – 7 mins ago

MEXICO, Mo. – Jordan Clay Harvey was raised to obey his truck-driver father, his attorney said. Even if it meant helping his parents and older brothers kill a man.

Harvey was just 14 years old in December 2009 when 20-year-old James William Boyd McNeely, an Ohio drifter, was killed in the Harvey family's home in Laddonia, a town of about 600 people northwest of St. Louis. McNeely's frozen corpse was found days later in the refrigerated compartment of Chester "C.J." Harvey's tractor-trailer parked east of Vandalia.

Jordan Harvey, now 16, pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree murder in a deal that calls for him to be sentenced as a juvenile next month even though he faced an adult charge. His attorney defended the sentencing deal, which would allow Harvey to be released at the age of 18 or 21.

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Chester Harvey has said in a series of phone interviews with The Associated Press that he picked up McNeely in Denver while driving, and the two became embroiled in a drug scheme because Harvey's family had fallen on hard times while caring for a young child who required daily kidney dialysis.




Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110412/ap_on_re_us/us_tractor_trailer_death