They may have done it just for the thrill. Teens charged with chilling crimes–from the lovers accused of killing their baby in Delaware to the service-academy couple from Texas–are not uncommon. But at least those alleged murders had motives, however twisted. Police have found little about the New Jersey pizza case to explain Koskovich and Vreeland’s suspected role beyond the mixture of alienation and acute boredom that sometimes leads kids to do stupid things–even murder. “You kill someone for the change in their pockets or for their sneakers,” says Dennis O’Leary, the Sussex County prosecutor. “There is no rational answer for this irrational act.”
Perhaps irrational, but also–as the police tell it–methodically planned. (Both men have pleaded not guilty.) Koskovich and Vreeland reportedly spent the hours before the crime hanging out at Koskovich’s house in Franklin, a scruffy former mining town where a bowling alley and a few strip malls serve as the major entertainment centers. The two teens left at about 8:30 p.m. and drove to a diner, then to the King Pins bowling alley. At about 10 p.m., a surveillance camera at a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts reportedly photographed them borrowing a phone book. After Gallara agreed to deliver the pizza, Koskovich and Vreeland allegedly drove to the deserted house on Scott Road and waited in the darkness. They were arrested two days later, after police traced the boys’ pizzeria calls to the Dunkin’ Donuts–and witnesses placed the two at the pay phone. If convicted, Koskovich could face the death penalty. The maximum sentence Vreeland, a minor, could receive is life in prison.
Though Koskovich and Vreeland met only in the last few months at Sussex County Vocational-Technical School, their lives have followed similarly difficult paths. Both come from broken homes. Friends say both recently had trouble with their girlfriends, with drugs and in school, although they often showed a softer side. Koskovich’s parents divorced and moved away; he lived with his grandparents. He told friends that when he was 10, he cut cocaine lines for an uncle. When the kids at Vo-Tech would talk about the future, Koskovich would say he wanted to be a hit man. One day he even brought a sawed-off shotgun to class and bragged about stealing guns. That boast might come back to haunt him: police say the .22- and .45-caliber guns used in the killings–and found in Koskovich’s house–were stolen two weeks ago from a local sports shop.
Though Vreeland looked intimidating–eight earrings in one ear, three in the other and a silver stud in his tongue–friends say he seemed less violent than Koskovich. Vreeland was known for destroying neighbors’ mail and rifling through unlocked cars. He had been arrested about a month ago for shooting a pellet gun at passersby. Friends say he also used drugs–including an animal tranquilizer called Special K. Though he’d sometimes say “I’m going to kill you” in the halls at school, his friends say he was too much of a follower to instigate anything serious. In fact, Sussex County authorities told NEWSWEEK they believe Koskovich coerced Vreeland into pulling the trigger by handing him the .22-caliber pistol and saying, “If you want a part of this, you better shoot. Otherwise, you’re getting shot.”
Meanwhile, criminologists say predatory teenage crime is becoming more frequent. As families and schools collapse everywhere, kids get lost in the rubble–the teen murder rate is rising fastest not in cities, but in rural areas. “You hear about these killings in New York, but when you see it here, it’s like a dream,” says Richard Giuriceo, who once employed Koskovich at his pizzeria. “What we’re all afraid of is that there was no reason.”
