Murder of Craig Sorger

Craig Martin Sorger (born February 10, 1990) was a thirteen-year-old seventh-grade special education student with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, living in Ephrata, Washington, after his family relocated from Everett to escape bullying he experienced there. On the afternoon of February 15, 2003, two 12-year-old acquaintances, Evan Drake Savoie and Jake Lee Eakin, came to the Sorger residence and asked his mother if he could play. She agreed, with the condition that Craig return before dark.

According to later testimony from Eakin, the three boys went to nearby Oasis Park. There, Savoie asked Sorger to feel the ground to check if it was wet and to count to ten while kneeling. While Sorger was in this position, Savoie dropped a rock on his neck and then repeatedly stabbed him in the head, neck, chest, and torso with a knife. Eakin stated he struck Sorger in the head and legs with a tree branch. The two boys then left Sorger, who was left motionless on the ground, and went to Savoie's home.

When Sorger did not return home, his mother searched for him, eventually finding Savoie and Eakin playing video games at Savoie's house without Craig. She called 911, and a search involving police and Savoie's parents led to the discovery of Sorger's body in a pile of leaves near a trail, along with the rock and branch used in the attack. Initial police interviews produced shifting and ultimately disproven accounts from the two boys, including a claim that Sorger had fallen from a tree. An autopsy found Sorger had been stabbed five times in the chest and torso, and at least 34 times in the head and neck, along with at least 20 blunt-force injuries.

Savoie and Eakin were arrested on February 18, 2003. Investigators later found a note by Savoie describing plans to kill another person, and a journal by Eakin that expressed support for the 2002 D.C. sniper attacks. The knife used in the killing was recovered from a nearby river a year later.

Both boys were charged as adults — Savoie with first-degree murder and Eakin with second-degree murder — a decision the Washington Supreme Court declined to review in February 2005, making them the youngest murder defendants tried as adults in Washington since 1931. Eakin pleaded guilty to second-degree murder by complicity in 2005 and testified against Savoie; he was sentenced to over 14 years. Savoie was convicted of first-degree murder in April 2006 and sentenced to over 26 years, later reduced to 20 years after his 2011 conviction was overturned on appeal due to trial-closure and legal-representation issues. Savoie subsequently pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2013 and was resentenced to 20 years in March 2014, at which point he also admitted to the killing.

Both were held at Green Hill Training School until adulthood before transfer to adult facilities. Eakin briefly escaped from work release in June 2016 but was recaptured within two days. He was conditionally released in February 2017, with his sentence fully ending in April 2019; he has since been arrested twice more on unrelated charges. Savoie was conditionally released in June 2020, with his sentence set to conclude in November 2033.