Thanks for watching....
They called the band Hatred, as if anyone could mistake its message. And all through the summer of 1995, the three small-town boys pounded out their frustration in the language of “death metal” – white supremacy, the occult, torture and necrophilia.
But Hatred was no more garage band. It was formed to glorify Satan, and it was to Satan the boys would turn, prosecutors say:
They believed killing a virgin would be the ultimate sin against God and would earn them a ticket to hell. Even better, they thought, it could mean a ticket to the top.
So on July 22, 1995, authorities say, the boys lured 15-year-old Elyse Pahler to a dark eucalyptus grove they considered a natural alter to the devil. There, the blue-eyed blonde who also dreamed of fame lost her life to make the boys’ dreams come true.
“It was to receive power from the devil to help them play guitar better,” said Doug Odom, one of the chief investigators. “By making this perfect sacrifice to the devil, (the boys thought) it might help them go professional.”
Whatever drove the teenagers – two are now awaiting trial on murder, rape and torture charges and third has pleaded guilty to murder – bewilders many who know them.
One defense attorney indicated it was more than Satanism.
“There probably was some sort of fantasy about Satan,” said Barry Post, who represents defendant Jacob Delashmutt, 17, “But people seem to forget that these are 15-years-olds growing up in Arroyo Grande. I don’t think there’s even a skating ring there.”
By many accounts, the boys – then 15, 16 and 17 – were heavily into drugs, stoners who no longer attended the only public high school in this small agricultural town 15 miles south of San Luis Obispo.
Royce Casey, 18 – the oldest of the three and the one who broke the case when he led investigators to Elyse’s skeletal remains – was attending continuation high school. Joseph Fiorella, 16 – thought to be the ringleader – was being taught at home. Delashmutt – the youngest of six children in a well-to-do family – had been expelled twice for possessing drugs and yelling obscenities at a teacher.
Attorneys and family members declined to talk in any great detail about the crime because of a gag order. All records have been sealed in the Superior Court case.
But according to testimony at a recent preliminary hearing in San Luis Obispo, these events culminated in the premature death of a small town girl:
Pahler didn’t know the three boys well – through she was acquainted with Fiorella and Delashmutt from riding the same school bus.
“She thought they were creepy,” recalled her 15-year-old sister, Jenilee.
Even so, lured by the promise of drugs, Pahler sneaked away from her house that June night and joined the trio at the edge of a densely wooded eucalyptus grove, less than a mile away, known as the Nipomo Mesa.
Together, they sat around, talked and smoked pot.
Then suddenly Delashmutt walked behind Pahler, remove the belt from his pants, slipped it over her neck and pulled it taut. Pahler struggled. But Casey held her hands.
Fiorella then pulled out a hunting knife and repeatedly plunged it into her neck before passing the weapon to his two companions, who took turns stabbing her with the six-inch blade.
As she lay moaning on the ground, crying out for her mother and praying to God, the boys stomped the back of her neck and dragged her by her feet into the eucalyptus grove, where she bled to death.
She had been stabbed at least 12 times.
Later, Royee told investigators, they had planned to have sex with the corpse but decided against it. The youths gave differing accounts of whether they had sex with the corpse, but authorities believe they did.
Plhler’s mother, Lisanne Pahler, who heard many of the graphic details for the first time in court, struggled to understand.
“I know she was not friends with these guys. It doesn’t make sense. I cannot imagine she would be lured by them. Something is missing,” she said.
Parents of one of the boys, too, sought to make sense of it all.
“We’re as shocked as anyone,” said Delashmutt’s father, Carter Delashmutt, whose other children include a missionary and a teacher.
“Jacob is totally native and d