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CHARGES AGAINST TEENAGER REDUCED IN KILLING OF THREE

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)

Author: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Dateline: LANCASTER

A defense attorney argued that abuse in Korea a decade ago caused an adopted teen to snap, and jurors agreed, convicting him of third-degree murder for stabbing his parents and sister.

Keith Chul Weaver, who was 14 at the time of the murders, also was convicted yesterday of simple assault and conspiracy to commit rape in an attack on another relative, a teenage girl.

The jury deliberated 16 hours over two days before returning the third- degree verdicts. The prosecution had pushed for first-degree convictions.

Each murder conviction carries a 10- to 20-year prison sentence. The teen will remain in Lancaster County Prison until sentencing, which was not scheduled. He will then be held in a juvenile facility until a transfer to state prison when he turns 18.

Tears flowed from the eyes of the 15-year-old Weaver and he crumpled into his defense attorney's arms when jury foreman Ronald Steward read the panel's decision.

"Now the healing can really begin," said an emotionally drained Deborah Weaver, Keith's 25-year-old sister.

She attended the trial with her brother, Steven, and numerous members of their Mennonite family. The Weavers have pledged to forgive their Korean-born brother for the Feb. 17, 1991, killings of their parents, Dr. R. Clair and Anna May Weaver, and their 15-year-old adopted sister, Kimberly.

"This is what we had hoped for," Steven Weaver said. "Now we have a sense of hope for the future."

The six-man, six-woman jury sided with defense attorney J. Richard Gray's defense of diminished mental capacity. Keith Weaver, who was adopted at age 4, was suffering from post-traumatic stress and in a dissociated state on the night of the murders, Gray argued.

Gray based his defense on the premise that Keith Weaver's physical abuse and abandonment in Seoul, Korea, left deep scars on the boy's psyche, scars that resurfaced the night of the killings.

"He's a kid, and he's a nice kid. This is a tragedy already," Gray said. ''Now, with third-degree, perhaps some portion of his life is salvageable."

Police found the three bodies in two rooms of the isolated farmhouse in Landisville, about 6 miles northwest of Lancaster.

District Attorney Henry S. Kenderdine Jr., said the youth apparently first killed his father by stabbing him in the back with a kitchen knife. Mrs. Weaver then came into the room, investigators said, and was stabbed.

Kimberly and the other teenage girl heard the screams and ran downstairs, police said. Police said Weaver then stabbed his sister as the other girl ran out of the house.

The boy caught her and handcuffed her, forced her to a barn and raped her, according to the prosecution. He indicated to the girl that he was going to kill himself, but the girl persuaded him instead to call police from a nearby house.

1992 Mar 14