M. William Phelps - Murderers Row: A Collection Of Shocking True Crime Stories (1)

FORENSIC FILES And the electric kill machine

Eighteen-year-old Jim Morel went out jogging one afternoon, not long after the ordeal he had gone through with his childhood friends was over. Jim was running in the country air of Massachusetts, trying to clear his head. He was thinking about the future. Jim had turned on his friends, some would say. He was a rat, others would proclaim. He was a hero, still others would argue. Either way, Jim wanted to forget about the past year and move on with his life.

As he jogged in a secluded area in Norton, Massachusetts, a big blue car, as Jim would later describe it, pulled up behind him to catch up with him, and then stopped.

This got Jims attention. He had been looking over his shoulder lately.

Are you Jim Morel? one of the two guys in the car asked. They were hulking men, big and brawny. Jim had never seen them before.

Yeah, yeah why? Whats up? Jim was sweating, and out of breath.

Jim thought maybe they were old friends. Grammar school? Junior high? It was getting late in the day, darker. He couldnt really make out their faces.

According to Jim, however, these men were not there to reminisce about the glory daysthey were there to hurt him. Hurt him bad.

One of the guys, Jim said, ran toward him with a kitchen knife and started stabbing into the air before hitting Jim in the arm.

What the heck are you Jim said. He had no idea what was happeningbut he knew why.

Before Jim could say anything else, the guy with the knife went for Jims face and started slashing.

Feeling the warm trickle of blood running down his cheeks and arm, Jim took off as fast as he could into the nearby woods, literally running for his life.

They had a name that was hardcore. A lot to swallow if you didnt get it: Electronic Kill Machine. But then, hardcore was an appropriate term to describe this group of teens who made up the band and the posse hanging around to watch rehearsals and attend gigs.

Jim Morel was seventeen then. This was long before he was viciously attacked that Sunday evening while out jogging. Jim played keyboards. He had a clean-cut appearance: light hair, skinny, tall, baby face. He wasnt some head banger who walked around with a chain hanging from his ear to his nose, tattoos, studded bracelets, ripped jeans, black Harley boots, metal dotted about his face. Jim just loved the music. For him, it was all about the music.

That band was a cross between electronic and, like, a heavier rock, Jim said, but it was more abstract, kind of dark.

Old-school Marylyn Manson meets a contemporary SlipKnot, in other words.

That darkness Jim associated with the music had also infected the lives of some of Electronic Kill Machines membersespecially the drummer, Jason Weir. Thomas Lally and Anthony Calabro, along with Weir, were kids Jim had grown up with in Norton. As friends go, they were tight.

Ant, as Anthony Calabro was called by his crew, Weir and Lally, Jim said, loved nothing more than getting high and watching hours upon hours of Forensic Files.

They lived in Quincy. They liked to sit around, drink, smoke weed, and watch hours of the show, intrigued by the mere stupidity of some criminals.

It got to the point where they were actually taking down notes, Jim recalled.

They not only watched the show and other forensic crime shows like it, but theyd go online afterward and study each of the cases like they were students. Theyd pull up witness statements, photographs, and court files and dissect each case as if it were some sort of high school assignment.

Towards the end, Jim recalled, they were just obsessed with the show.

It got to the point where Lally, Ant, and Weir looked at Jim and other kids in the group and, with smiles on their faces, said things as bizarre as, We could kill somebody and get away with it.

Jim and the others would shake it off, maybe have a laugh.

Yeah, right. You guyskillers? No way.

The neighborhood Jim Morel and his buddiesLally, Weir, and Ant Calabrogrew up in forty miles south of Boston, in and around Norton, was not so much rough as it was working-class. Norton, Brockton, Foxboro (home of the New England Patriots), Canton, these towns are suburbs: outside the confines of places like Quincy, Brookline, and Chelsea, where the streets are a little more hardscrabble and rough in some sections to walk around.

Still, for Jim and his friends, living amid white picket fences and lawn mowers and cul-de-sacs didnt change things at home. We all kind of came from broken homes, Jim remembered. We all kind of, like, moved in together and became each others families.

It was the summer of 2001, as Jim told it. Ant was eighteen then. Lally was twenty-one, and Weir, like Jim, was seventeen. Jason was talented, Jim claimed. A solid drummer. Lally just hung around with the band; one of those wannabes or groupies. And Ant, well, Anthony Calabro was the bands self-proclaimed manager. He was the kid who was going to take the group over the top, to the next level, get them a record deal.

Ant lived with his great aunt, 84-year-old Marina Calabro. Marina owned a triplex, a large three-decker in Quincy. Marina and Ant lived on the third floor. Weir and Lally soon moved in after leaving home, and having nowhere to go, and no one to turn to. Ant loved his great aunt. Jim said he talked about her a lot. About how kind, gentle, and outgoing the old woman had been.

Marina agreed to allow the kids to live with her. After all, she had a lot of money stowed away and owned property worth some serious coin.

Whatever Ant needed, she bought it for him, Jim said. Ant crashed up a car up once. Marina stepped in and bought him a new one, then paid for his insurance, too. I dont remember Ant ever having to work. Most of us had jobs. He didnt. She just paid for everything.

Marina adored Ant to the point of telling him that she was willing her entire estateeverything she owned, near of $1.2 millionto him. Ant was sitting on a hefty inheritance. He was young. Even if Marina lived to be 94 years old, it would only be ten years until then.

Jim Morel and his three buddies were recluses; they didnt much travel beyond the comfort zone of their own group or neighborhood. They didnt really make new friends. Jims friend, Jason Weir, was a pretty bright kid, Jim recalled. He, like the rest of us, came from a broken family. Hed done his fair sharelike all of usof petty crimes, but nothing too major.