3 teens charged in Okla. in killing of Australian student

DUNCAN, Okla. - Two Oklahoma teenagers accused of randomly targeting and killing an Australian baseball player as he jogged are automatically being charged as adults.

Prosecutors charged James Francis Edwards Jr., 15, and Chancey Allen Luna, 16, with first-degree murder Tuesday. Police say the two killed Christopher Lane, 22, on Friday to overcome boredom. Under Oklahoma law, anyone who is 15 or older and facing a first-degree murder charge is automatically tried in adult court.

Also Tuesday, Michael Dewayne Jones, 17, was charged with being an accessory after the fact and with using a vehicle during the discharge of weapon. Jones is charged as a youthful offender, but will have his case heard in adult court.

No bond was set for the younger boys. Bond for Jones was set at $1 million.

Police Chief Dan Ford has said the boys had the simplest of motives - overcoming a boring end to their summer vacation. Ford said in a variety of interviews that Jones had told officers that the teens were bored and killed Lane for "the fun of it."

Meanwhile, family and friends on two continents mourned Lane, who gave up pursuit of an Australian football career to pursue his passion for baseball, an American pastime. His girlfriend, Sarah Harper, tearfully laid a cross at a streetside memorial in Duncan, while half a world away, an impromptu memorial grew at the home plate he protected as catcher on his youth team.

Flowers, photos, and an Australian flag already adorned the roadside in a tribute to Lane.

"I don't know anybody who's left this," Harper said. "It means a lot."

Lane played at East Central University in Ada, 85 miles east of Duncan, and had been visiting Harper and her parents for about a week after he and Harper returned from Australia.

A former deputy prime minister in Australia called for a tourism boycott of the United States, while Lane's former clubs sought ways to honor their former teammate.

His old team, Essendon, scheduled a memorial game for Sunday to raise funds for Lane's parents as they worked to have their boy's remains sent home. The club said it would deliver notes of condolences sent to its headquarters.

Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper reported that roses and a baseball were placed Monday on the home plate where Lane played as a youth, with the message, "A wonderful young man taken too soon. Why?"

At the site of the shooting, Bill Renfrow, 85, said he saw emergency workers tending to Lane and believed there had been a hit-and-run accident behind his home.

"It's very saddening. It's a terrible thing to happen. It's so unusual," he said, later adding: "He was a guest in the country."