CHRISTOPHER "CODY" THOMPSON and girlfriend BODHISATTVA "BODHI" SHERZER-POTTER - 18 and 16 yo - (1/2008) / Charged: Collin Lee McGlaughlin and David Brian Smith - Apple Valley, CA

Collin McGlaughlin (18) was arrested on suspicion of murder after Christopher 'Cody' Thompson (18) and his girlfriend Bodhisattva 'Bodhi' Sherzer-Potter (16) were shot in the head after a birthday party



Published: Jan 30, 2008 @ 2:44 PM

A young man arrested in the deaths of two teenagers at a Mojave Desert bunker had posed with firearms and written darkly on an Internet blogging site of "killing people at random" but had no clear motive for the shootings, authorities said Friday.

Collin Lee McGlaughlin, 18, of West Covina was arrested Thursday night on suspicion of killing Bodhisattva Sherzer-Potter, 16, of Silver Lakes and her boyfriend, Christopher Cody Thompson, 18, of Apple Valley. A second suspect, David Brian Smith, 19, of Covina, also has been booked on suspicion of murder, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

Sherzer-Potter and Thompson were each shot in the head sometime after 4 a.m. Jan. 5, authorities said. They were the last people remaining at a birthday party at a defunct military installation near Helendale. Authorities allege that McGlaughlin was the one who shot the teenagers.

"There is no evidence that a robbery took place," said Cindy Beavers, a sheriff's spokeswoman. "The victims were taken into the bunker and they were executed. There was no sign of any struggle or resistance. No property was taken. There is no apparent motive or reason for this."

The killings stunned the high desert community. Both teenagers were good students with no history of problems at home or school. Sherzer-Potter wanted to make movies, and Thompson had recently graduated and was working as a contractor.

Some residents said they were relieved to hear that an arrest had been made because they worried that a killer was roaming free. Others, including the mother of the slain girl, renewed calls to demolish the graffiti-scarred bunker. "We need to shut this place down," said Leah Sherzer, mother of Bodhisattva Sherzer-Potter. "I understand there are 18 similar locations like this in the desert, and the government must shut them all down immediately."

McGlaughlin and Smith were arrested after an around-the-clock effort by investigators. Search warrants in Los Angeles and Riverside counties turned up two guns that authorities are testing to see if they were used in the killings. The suspects were being held without bail and are scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in San Bernardino County Superior Court in Barstow.

McGlaughlin kept a chilling MySpace.com blog with photos of himself brandishing a shotgun and pistol. He calls himself an "Equal Opertunity (sic) Merchant of Death." The suspect says he is a student at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, but a spokeswoman for the two-year school said there is no record of him ever being enrolled.

McGlaughlin lists 10 things he believes: No. 1 is "I entered this world screaming and covered in someone else's blood and thats how I intend to leave it." Others include, "u may be able to outrun me but can u outrun a bullet???" and "I feel that if a person really needs it they should be able to walk down the street with a .357 killing people at random."

The blog was met with intense anger from friends of Sherzer-Potter and Thompson, who blasted it with responses. "God will make sure you get what you deserve! I hope everyday you wake up and realize what a horrible person you are," one said. "Why?" said another.

Court records show that Smith, the other suspect, was convicted of vandalism in February 2007, but there is no indication of any jail time.

Most of the 30 or 40 young adults who attended the party where the killings occurred came from Silver Lakes, a tightly knit high desert community between Barstow and Victorville. The deaths have fostered much confusion.

"I think there is an overwhelming sense of what a waste this was. Why would you murder these people? It's such a stupid thing to do," said Rick Piercy, president of the Lewis Center for Educational Research, an Apple Valley charter school that both victims had attended.

Piercy was one of a number of people who called for the bunker's destruction.

"There are a lot of hazards out in the desert, but this [bunker] in particular has such a feeling of depression and evil because of what happened that it must come down," he said.

The Air Force said that it hoped to demolish the site by the end of the year. The bunker is part of the old Hawes Auxiliary Field, a training site built during World War II. It has become a hangout for teenagers, target shooters and occasionally criminals. Bullet casings and broken glass litter the site.

Leah Sherzer, a school psychologist, expressed gratitude to the detectives who spent so many hours on the case.

"They have been tireless, and they took it so personally," she said. "The community needs to provide a safe place without booze or drugs where kids can have some independence in a safe environment. My daughter was very protected and watched over and yet this happened to her." Her voice cracked. "And nothing is going to bring her back."

http://www.mydeathspace.com/article/2008/01/30/Collin_McGlaughlin_%2818%29_was_arrested_on_suspicion_of_murder_after_Christopher__Cody__Thompson_%2818%29_and_his_girlfriend_Bodhisattva__Bodhi__Sherzer_Potter_%2816%29_were_shot_in_the_head_after_a_birthday_party

Date Published 10.18.11


The Desert Bunker Murders



If you ever read the court transcripts of the preliminary hearing of what is commonly known as "the desert bunker murders," as I recently did, you'll be struck by one refrain:  how many people feared Collin McGlaughlin in the years, and especially days, leading up to the events of Jan. 5, 2008.

His small private high school feared him, back in 2005.  They had police come and take him away for making terrorist threats.  The prosecutor in that case described him as "an accident waiting to happen."

His two friends, David Smith and Cameron Thomson, feared him.  He was psychotic, they said.  Crazy.  Scary.

His father feared him.  He locked up his guns because Collin's erratic behavior frightened him, and then he took his son to the doctor for psychiatric medication.

The kid caused unease.  A slingshot stretched taut with bad intention.

From Collin's MySpace blog:


i feel that if a person really needs it they should be able to walk down the street with a .357 killing people at random[/i]
He was short, overweight, with a doughy impassive face made blanker by his dead-eyed stare.  He was an 18-year-old in combat boots whose life was shit and whose output was all rage.

And no one did anything.

It's as if he was a ticking time bomb that everyone decided was background noise they could live with; the court transcripts tell a story of fear, but also of concession, passivity, and pivoting away --- from that which scared them, from responsibility.



Collin McGlaughlin, from his MySpace

Collin McGlaughlin was the director of a movie no one wanted to make, but they drifted listlessly into their roles anyway --- the father who let his psychologically disturbed son borrow his guns, the sidekick who only mumbled "that's dumb" when presented with Collin's violent plan.

His ability to cause fear was the only ability Collin had, and on a cold, rainy January night four years ago he stumbled upon the perfect setting to make true on his violent potential: an abandoned military bunker in the desert, a maze of graffiti-scrawled concrete littered with beer cans and spent shotgun shells where bored teenagers came to party.

I read the transcripts only as a refresher, because I was there at the preliminary hearing.  I remember the moment Collin, previously blank, broke into a smile.  The smile didn't happen when he saw his parents, but occurred instead when the the autopsy photos were passed among the attorneys, and a glimpse of the bloodied victims sent a shudder through the courtroom.

I didn't fear him.  But I was awfully glad he was in iron shackles and a uniformed guard with a gun was standing next to him.


The Bunker

This part of southern California, northeast of the San Gabriel Mountains, is known as the High Desert.  Barstow, Palmdale, Victorville.  For most people the area is a windy stretch of desert scrub brush on the way to Las Vegas.

Edwards Air Force Base is nearby, and off the highway, deep into the desert, old military installations still stand, neglected and decaying.  The military chose the area for its wide, empty expanse and sparse population, qualities that aren't ideal for teenagers searching for a place to connect.  Over the years High Desert teens began gathering at the abandoned mines and bunkers out in the desert; the sites, spooky and remote, offer a kind of outlaw freedom, a place to smash beer bottles and light fires without consequence.

Q Can you describe what the lighting was like, when you went into the Bunker at that time?

A It's completely underground.  It's completely dark.  Once you walk inside...you literally cannot see your hand in front of your face, it is so dark. 

Detective Robert Alexander of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department got the call at 4:17 p.m.  There was a suspicious death, or deaths, out at the Bunker, a former Air Force radio relay station.

In the courtroom Alexander described the route to the Bunker, turning off Highway 58 onto a semi-paved road, then onto dirt, parking and walking a quarter mile through rock and sand until he came to the nearly 30-foot-mound of earth and concrete.

A gold Jeep was parked near the Bunker.  There was an aluminum lawn chair collapsed outside the driver's door.  Below the back bumper was a pair of black gym shoes.  Alexander observed toe dig impressions on either side of the Jeep.

Alexander and his team made their way into the Bunker with flashlights.  He described narrow corridors, walls blackened with soot and covered with graffiti, the ground littered with glass, gravel and dirt. They could smell smoke from fires that had been lit inside.

Turning left into the main corridor, they came upon two bodies lying on the ground.  The male was face up, with his legs folded beneath him.  He'd been shot in the back and through the right eye.  The female was slumped forward, with a blue sleeping bag wrapped around her.  She'd been shot in the temple, right buttock and back.  There was a shoe track on her back, on top of where she'd been shot.

Q And did David tell you what Collin did at that point?

A Yeah.  He said that Collin kicked her and said, Are you still alive?

The victims, Bodhisattva "Bodhi" Sherzer-Potter, 16, and Christopher "Cody" Thompson, 18, met in film school at the Lewis Center for Educational Research, a prestigious charter school in Apple Valley.  Bodhi was pretty, curious, artistically inclined.  She wrote poetry.  Along with her single Mom, a school psychologist, she baked bread every Sunday morning for her neighbors.  Cody was quiet, played guitar, was sweet to his girlfriend.  The couple had been dating for about a year.



Cody and Bodhi


[left]The couple had come to the Bunker to celebrate a friend's birthday, and decided to remain there and spend the night together in Cody's Jeep. They were last seen around 3 a.m.  When they hadn't appeared by the next afternoon, worried friends returned to the Bunker and discovered their bodies inside.

The victims' friends told investigators about a trio of unfamiliar young men who showed up in a Honda Odyssey van and asked if they could join the party.  The strangers brought a bottle of raspberry Bacardi that was passed around.  They didn't make a strong impression, maybe a little cagey, a little vacant, though someone recalled that one guy who identified himself as "Mac" said that while in school he'd been arrested for making threats to kill a "nigger."

For two weeks nothing moved on the case.  Then a tip came in --- a guy in Victorville said his friend, David, had stopped by his house with two friends the night of the murders.  They said they were going camping and shooting in the desert, but the tipster didn't want to join because David's friend, Collin, was "psycho."  They left.  David called later and asked for directions to the Bunker, which he remember from a previous gathering.

Around 4 a.m. the tipster's phone rang.  It was David.  Some "bad shit went down," David told him.  "Don't tell anybody we were here."

David Smith, 19, and his friends Collin McGlaughlin, 18, and Cameron Thomson, 16, were from "down the hill," on the other side of the San Gabriel Mountains, from the towns of Covina and West Covina.  Smith had been a high school track star, but he lost his athletic scholarship to UC-Riverside after a conflict with the coach.  He couldn't afford to pay for college anymore and was drifting, crashing at Cameron's house.

Collin had been kicked out of several schools, and had spent some time in a mental hospital.  He was the topic of many conversations among the people in his life.  "What's he going to do?" they wondered.  It was all cringing anticipation, no prevention.  Collin spoke frequently of his desire to kill someone.  In December his father finally took him to a doctor for an evaluation and medication.

Three weeks later, on Jan.4, Collin asked his Dad if he could borrow his shotgun and Rutger Mini-14 rifle.  His father said yes. 

Collin placed the guns in a tan duffel bag, threw the bag in the back of Cameron's mother's van, and the three friends headed north, toward the desert.

Detectives wired the tipster, and arranged for him to meet with David and Cameron. The plan to go camping had been vague, they said.  No one brought gear.  In some versions of the telling Collin was hot to rob someone; in others he was just out to kill.  What's consistent is Collin's off-kilter presence, the menacing instability that couldn't be tamped down.  David and Cameron experienced a great deal of apprehension, they said.  But they never acted on it.  The Bacardi gone, the party breaking up, Collin got quiet, and then blurted out the plan:  they would wait until most everyone was gone and there was only one car left.  It was cold and windy, and occasionally raining.  Eventually only Cody's Jeep remained outside the Bunker.



Collin McGlaughlin and David Smith


Collin commanded Cameron, the youngest and likely the meekest, to stay in the van and act as a lookout.  He grabbed the shotgun, handed David the Mini-14, and they walked over to the Jeep.  They banged on the windows, walking Bodhi and Cody.  Collin marched the sleepy couple, half-dressed and barefoot, into the Bunkner.  He ordered them to their knees.

David says at this point he put his gun down and began walking away.  Collin called out for light, and David held the flashlight behind him as he walked, providing an ebbing, uneven light.  In doing so he was both separate but crucial to what came next.

The first of five shots rang out.


It was a hell of an adrenalin rush.



-Collin McGlaughlin, secretly recorded in his jail cell


It should be noted that prosecutors don't believe the autopsy reports jibe exactly with David Smith's version of events, and he may have fired at least one of the shots.

With the tipster's secret recordings investigators had more to go on, and they zeroed in on Cameron and David.  To varying degrees the two cooperated with police; their stories sometimes changed, and they were overheard on the recordings discussing how to cover up the crime, but they were malleable.

What's striking is how unflappable Collin was when police came for him.  He interrupted Detective Alexander as he was trying to read him his rights.

"I know what the Miranda laws are," he said.  "I would like an attorney.  I would like one as soon as humanly possible."

Collin McGlaughlin, David Smith, and Cameron Thomson were each charged with murder, attempted robbery and kidnapping.  At the preliminary hearing Cameron sat apart from David and Collin.  He stared straight ahead and never turned his head, though his face, pale and pained, twitched frequently.

Last March Cameron pleaded guilty to 2 counts of voluntary manslaughter. As part of of a plea bargain he'll testify against Collin and David.

Collin's parents attended the preliminary hearing.  They huddled together, his mother in a fleece jacket, his father in a windbreaker, and spoke to no one else.  During breaks they walked over to the waiting room windows and looked fascinated by the hedges.

At one point during witness testimony I saw Collin's mother go limp and pivot into her husband's body, pressing her face into his jacket.  She's devastated, I thought.  Only later, when Collin's father shifted his stance and I caught another angle did I realize no, she's not devastated.  She's asleep.

At first I was drawn to this story because I'd heard that David and Collin's fathers were involved in law enforcement, and that contradiction interested me.  There was also the fact of the good, happy kids intersecting with the lost boys in the dark, vast desert.

Later I came to see the story as less about the act of violence at its center, and more about inaction, the vacuum of responsibility that cushioned Collin as he grew more scary and violent.



Inside the bunker

After the preliminary hearing, prosecutors announced they were going to seek the death penalty against Collin, and life in prison for David.  David pleaded not guilty, and Collin pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Later Collin's lawyers argued that he wasn't competent to stand trial.  On Monday , Oct. 3 a competency trial began.  The jury heard jail recordings of Collin talking about "going with the psych defense" and asking "how crazy do I have to get?"

The jury deliberated for a few hours before ruling him competent to stand trial.

Collin shared with the courtroom one final gesture before he was taken away, a message that implies a certain awareness that doesn't correspond with an insanity defense, but in its blunt fury seems true to who he was, and is: he flipped them the finger.

http://www.truecrimediary.com/index.cfm?page=cases&id=157

Victims protest against public defender for delaying trial

May 04, 2012 3:40 PM


JAMES QUIGG, DAILY PRESS
Marissa Matlock yells at passing motorists while protesting for new leadership of the Public Defender's office at the Victorville courthouse Friday morning. About 50 family members and friends of the victims turned out to protest the court delays in Collin McGlaughlin's capital murder case.


VICTORVILLE • Families and friends of two teens who were killed in an abandoned bunker protested against the public defender's office Friday, claiming the defense was delaying the court proceedings for no good reasons.

About 50 protesters lined up on the sidewalks in front of the Victorville courthouse, as 22-year-old murder defendant Collin Lee McGlaughlin — who’s facing the death penalty if convicted — appeared in court for a pre-trial hearing. They held signs claiming the victims’ rights to a speedy trial and asked passers-by to honk their horns for the slain teens, Bodhi Sherzer-Potter and Christopher Cody Thompson.

They even passed out petitions asking San Bernardino County supervisors to remove the leadership of the public defender’s office.
“The bottom line is, it’s a series of excuses after excuses,” said Leah Sherzer, Bodhi’s mother. “It’s shaken my faith in the system here.”

According to court records, Deputy Public Defender George Wright told the court on March 23 he may be taken off the case due to a rotation, but McGlaughlin requested that Wright remain on his two-men defense team.

Interim Public Defender Phyllis Morris appeared in the next hearing on April 13 and asked the judge to substitute Wright with another lawyer in her office. But Judge John Tomberlin denied the motion because the scheduled trial was only four months away. Both parties had agreed earlier that they would be ready to start the trial in August.

On April 19, Morris told the court the issue had been resolved because they would relieve Deputy Public Defender Rasheed Alexander from the case instead of Wright and add Deputy Public Defender Stephan Willms. Morris said she listened to her client’s wish to retain Wright.

Prosecutor Steve Sinfield objected because it will take time for Willms to prepare for the trial, though Willms used to be assigned to the case.

“I’m familiar with the case, but to some extent I need to refamiliarize myself with the case,” Willms said Friday.

The defense asked the trial to be postponed for at least nine months for further investigation.

The judge told Alexander to remain on the case, but Morris responded she would then have to declare a conflict, which may cause an even longer delay. Tomberlin eventually allowed Alexander to get off the case and Willms to join the defense team.

Morris also told the court that her office is facing a funding issue, but the prosecution didn’t buy into that reason.

“You’re taking off one public defender and putting on another,” Sinfield said. “Why is it a resource issue? I don’t get it. That’s the argument I made to the judge. I honestly don’t know what’s happening. They’ve been very vague.”

The public defender’s office is not allowed to elaborate on the reasons behind continuances because they’re privileged information, said Chief Deputy Public Defender John Zitney, who oversees the Homicide Defense Unit. But Zitney said his unit’s track record speaks for itself.

The Homicide Defense Unit has tried four death penalty cases since 2009 and 10 non-capital murder cases. Wright finished a three-month death penalty trial in Victorville in February.

“It’s a workload issue,” Morris said, according to a court transcript. “The reality is we have a Homicide Defense Unit that has done quite well in terms of trying numerous capital cases. ... The reality though is that at some point it catches up with you, and we need additional time to just complete the investigation.”

Morris emphasized in a phone interview this week that the delays are due to additional investigation and have nothing to do with personnel changes. In death penalty cases, defense attorneys have to thoroughly investigate not only facts of the case, but also the defendant’s background to prepare for the penalty phase of the trial.

“No case would go to trial until it is fully investigated, especially a death penalty case. It’s just not ready for trial,” she said. “I understand (the victims’) emotional attachment to the case and their impatience in reference to the delay. But we are not intentionally delaying this case. This is a serious matter when someone’s looking at death.”

The victims’ family members suspected that the defense is trying to delay the trial until after the November ballot, when voters will get to decide whether or not to repeal the death penalty. But Zitney said the qualified ballot measure has nothing to do with the delays because the law, if it passes, will be applied to past convicts as well.

The trial is now scheduled to begin Jan. 11, which is six days after the five-year mark of the victims’ death. According to San Bernardino County Sheriff’s officials, McGlaughlin shot the victims to death execution style in an abandoned bunker near Helendale.

“There are a lot of mothers of murdered children who are afraid to speak up because they are told it’s going to compromise their cases,” Sherzer said. “But they need to talk. Victims have the right to a speedy trial. There’s no closure until the end of this case.”

Tomoya Shimura may be reached at (760) 955-5368 or TShimura@VVDailyPress.com. Follow Tomoya on Facebook at facebook.com/ShimuraTomoya.

http://www.vvdailypress.com/articles/public-34311-trial-victims.html

California man who killed 'just for fun' given life in prison



Collin Lee McGlaughlin, 24, of West Covina, admitted to killing Bodhisattva 'Bodhi' Sherzer-Potter, 16, and Christopher Cody Thompson, 18, execution style. People inside the courtroom cheered as he was sentenced.


NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, January 19, 2014, 12:30 PM


James Quigg/AP
The family of Bodhisattva ‘Bodhi’ Sherzer-Potter holds photos of her during the sentencing hearing for Collin McGlaughlin on Friday.

A courtroom full of people broke into cheers and applause when a man convicted of murdering two people "just for fun" was sentenced to life in prison.

The emotional sentencing proceedings in Victorville, Calif., featured outrage by the family and friends of the two teenage victims of Bodhisattva "Bodhi" Sherzer-Potter, 16, of Helendale, and her boyfriend, Christopher Cody Thompson, 18, of Apple Valley, who were murdered "execution style" in an abandoned military bunker, according to the Daily Press.


Collin Lee McGlaughlin, 24, of West Covina, pleaded guilty to the charges in December and on Friday was sentenced to life without parole.

Judge John M. Tomberlin told the murderer he thinks he carried out the slayings "just for fun," according to the newspaper.

"I stopped existing when he died," Pamela Thompson, Cody's mother, told McGlaughlin. "If you had such a fascination with death, you should have killed yourself."

Bodhi's mother, Leah Sherzer, also shared her pain with tears.




James Quigg/AP
Collin McGlaughlin (right) listens during his sentencing for the death of two teenagers.

"Bodhi was my sunshine, my spring, my joy, my laughter," she said. "There will be no high school graduation, no college, no wedding dress. The day she died, my world went gray."

The suspect had a long history of emotional issues and fascination with death. His Myspace page referred to himself as an "equal opportunity merchant of death," according to the Sun.

McGlaughlin blamed co-defendant David Smith, 25, of Covina, for coercing him into committing the murder, but at his pre-sentencing hearing in December he took responsibility.

"I can't express my feelings toward it, because there's no way to describe remorse, the depth of emptiness that something like this leaves," McGlaughlin said to his probation officer, according to the newspaper. "And try as I might to apologize and clearly no matter what, that void will never be filled by me or anyone else, and I'm sorry I was the person that produced that void."

Smith is awaiting trial on similar charges.

McGlaughlin did not speak during the proceeding and actually smirked at times, the Press reported.

His indignation was noticed by those in attendance as they cheered when the sentence was read.

As he was led away from the courtroom, several people shouted "have fun," the Press reported.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/man-killed-fun-life-prison-article-1.1584638#ixzz2qtuL3y9y