IStock Photo 7227829 © Jose Gil

On April 29th, John Odgren was convicted in the stabbing death of 15-year-old James Alenson, a classmate at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, near Boston. At the time of the murder, Odgren was 16.

The defense had mounted an insanity defense, arguing that Odgren, who has Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, and has been diagnosed with depression and mood disorders, was legally insane at the time of the crime. The odds a 16-year-old has autism are 1 in 304.6. The odds are 1 in 4 that a person who will—at some point in his or her life—be diagnosed with depression will experience symptoms before the age of 20. Those are the same odds that a person who will be told they have a mood disorder will exhibit signs of the illness before the age of 19.

Testimony at the trial painted a picture of a disturbed young man who had become absorbed in violent books and video games. Odgren referred to himself as Jack, a character from the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, and became obsessed with the number 19, which is featured in the series. Alenson was murdered on January 19th, 2007.

On the morning of the murder, before getting on the bus for school, Odgren watched Mass Avenger, a video in which faceless cartoon characters stab and shoot each other in rapid succession. Four months earlier, on the day after his birthday, Odgren had reportedly posted a blog entry on MySpace expressing his excitement that he was finally old enough to “legally drive and buy hunting knives in Massachusetts,” adding, “I’m nervous I might begin to channel Tommy Versetti (sic) while I am in the process of doing either thing.” Tommy Vercetti is the name of the main character in the extremely popular—and blood-soaked—video game series, Grand Theft Auto. The odds a teenage boy will play Grand Theft Auto in a year are 1 in 1.32.

Odgren had brought weapons to school before, which had been confiscated; the odds a male student will bring a weapon onto school property are 1 in 11.11.

On the day of the murder, he brought a 13-inch carving knife from his family’s home, and before it could be discovered, Odgren had used it to stab Alenson, a newcomer to the school who did not even know his assailant. Odgren had voiced a desire to commit the “perfect murder” by finding a stranger in an isolated location and stabbing him to death—exactly the scenario he carried out, coming upon Alenson in a boy’s bathroom before the school day started.

Odgren now faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison, with no possibility of parole.

During the three-week trial, the nation marked the 11th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School. Despite concern over school violence, according to the US Department of Justice, the number of homicides committed in schools has declined dramatically since the early 1990s, following a pattern of decline in serious crime throughout the US.

In 2007, the year John Odgren killed his classmate, only 3.2% of murderers were age 13-16.