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Hearing Held For High-country Shooting, Wrongful Death Suit Vs. Parent Likely

November 23, 2005

On this high plateau overlooking the Colorado River one day last summer, a single shot was fired that still echoes across the rugged landscape. Nine-year-old Taylor Allen DeMarco died within minutes and now, Eric Alan Stoneman, 14, is charged as an adult with first-degree murder and could go to prison for the rest of his life if convicted. And in the background still lies the possibility that a wrongful death suit may be filed against Stoneman's mother.

A 13-year-old friend, the lone witness to the shooting, has changed his story several times about what occurred July 20, 2004. 'In my heart, I know it was an accident,' said Valorie Stoneman, whose .22-caliber semi-automatic handgun was taken from beneath her bed and used by her son. 'Lashing out at me isn't going to make anything better,' she said through tears that took only brief pauses during a long interview. 'I've lost everything I had. My son. Everything.'

Emotions have run high between Taylor and Eric's families, beginning with Eric's initial court appearance the day after the shooting, where Bill DeMarco, the dead child's 39-year-old father, had to be restrained by sheriff's deputies from attacking the young defendant. After Eric's preliminary hearing, Taylor DeMarco's mother, Wendi Robyn, issued a lengthy statement, suggesting that Eric would pay for the crime 'not on this earth but in eternity.' She dismissed any contention that the shooting was an accident. 'How can an 'innocent person' threaten to return . . . with a gun, actually return with one, point the gun at two boys, threatening to kill them, chase them into another room and threaten to shoot out the door, and then actually shoot one of them, and killing him call it an accident?' she asked. 'How is that possible? His moment of clarity occurred after the incident.' Eric Stoneman's trial is set to begin March 20.

The families of both Taylor and Eric, who had lived a tenth of a mile apart, moved off the mesa - and in opposite directions - immediately after the shooting. It had been Robyn's plan to do so even before losing the fourth of her five children. She's now living in a quiet residential neighborhood of Fruita. Stoneman, who never slept another night in her home after her son's arrest, is staying in a modest apartment in downtown Rifle. 'Eric is a very loving kid,' said his mother, 44. 'He was - is - still my life. And I understand their pain and their anger,' she said of Taylor's family. 'I'm sure those people are having a hard time. I'm not just hurting for my son. I hurt for all the families.'

Battlement Mesa is glitteringly described on its Web site as 'one of the most luxurious communities in the country.' And while the rolling 3,200- acre development encompasses subdivisions such as The Reserve - featuring 4,000-square- foot homes going for as much as $500,000 - it also includes the Saddleback mobile home park. There, where monthly rents are in the $500-to-$600 range, Eric and Taylor became acquainted through activities such as skateboarding and playing video games. They were not close, however. 'I had never heard (Eric's) name before' the shooting, said Wendi Robyn. 'After the fact, I heard a lot of stories' about him.

Eric and Taylor had more than a little in common. Both struggled in school. Eric, described by his mother as a 'special needs' child with attention deficit disorder, had suffered teasing at the hands of his peers. Taylor repeated kindergarten and battled a bit of a speech impediment. His mother, too, worried that he might have been teased by other kids. Both boys had seen their parents split up recently.

Juvenile court case filings in Garfield County are surging, according to 9th Judicial District Attorney Colleen Truden: 116 for the first nine months of this year, compared with 69 during the same period in 2004. In a grim foreshadowing of Taylor's death, a 12-year-old Battlement Mesa boy, Nick Jones, was shot to death in 2003 at the home of one of his friends. As in the case of Taylor's death, three boys - all of whom attended the same school as Taylor, Bea Underwood Elementary - were in the home when Nick Jones was killed. In another parallel to Taylor's case, no adults were present. But the shooting of Nick Jones was ruled an accident.

Bill DeMarco, who readily admits to still being as angry as his courtroom aggression toward Eric suggests, said Eric's mother and father are guilty of negligence for not keeping closer tabs on their troubled son. 'I think the parents ought to be held just as responsible as the child is,' said DeMarco.

The first-degree-murder charge filed Sept. 27 against Eric Stoneman alleges that the shooting took place 'unlawfully, feloniously, after deliberation,' and with the intent to cause death. Eric Warde, the 13-year-old at whose home the shooting occurred, was the uneasy star witness at Eric Stoneman's preliminary hearing last month in Garfield County District Court. Although he's the prosecution's lone eyewitness, he was called to the stand by public defender Greg Greer. Prosecutors hoped to be able to meet the probable cause requirement by calling only sheriff's investigators, and without calling Eric Warde, who has told several contradictory stories about the shooting. For the same reason, Eric Stoneman's public defenders wanted Eric Warde on the stand.

Eric Warde, slightly built and sporting a hooded sweatshirt and well-worn jeans, described a day of squabbling among the threesome and threats by Eric Stoneman that he would kill Taylor. 'I didn't think that he was actually serious because I was used to it,' said Eric Warde. After Eric Stoneman went home in the early afternoon and came back carrying his mother's handgun, Taylor and Eric Warde locked themselves in a bathroom.

But soon they emerged and all three ended up sitting around in the living room. In the moments before Taylor was shot, Eric Stoneman allegedly pointed the gun at his own head, idly stuck it in his own mouth, aimed it briefly at Eric Warde, and even let Taylor hold it for a moment before taking it back. Eric Warde admitted at the preliminary hearing that he wasn't looking when the gun suddenly went off, striking Taylor in the chest.

Garfield County animal control officer Aimee Chappelle testified that when she saw Eric Stoneman handcuffed in the back of a patrol car, he was inconsolable, nearly hysterical. ' 'This is just a dream, right?' ' she heard him wailing. ' 'I'm going to wake up, right?' . . . He kept asking me if his mother would love him after this, and if Taylor's parents would kill him. Eric Stoneman stated, 'I'm going to burn in hell. I'm going to prison for the rest of my life, aren't I?' '

Valorie Stoneman was at work when the shooting happened and out of cell phone range. That evening, when she saw her son in custody, 'He asked me how Taylor was, and I told him he died,' she said. 'He was crying, saying, 'Mom, it was an accident, you have to believe me.' And I said, 'Don't tell me anymore.' It was to protect him. The less I know, the less I can be asked,' Valorie Stoneman said. 'But I seriously don't believe that Eric thought that gun was going to shoot. I think he thought the safety was on.' She said she knew her son was aware that she owned a gun. But she didn't know he knew where she kept it.

Sharon Robyn, Taylor's 57- year-old grandmother, wears her grief over the violent loss of her grandson like a second skin she can't shed. She still finds it extremely difficult to talk about his death. She wants to urge people, she said, to 'pay attention to your kids . . . Just spend a little time with them. Even if you're too tired. 'It's hard when you're working and you're tired, when life has kicked you in the hind end a few times. But just let them know that you are on their side.'