Teens Recruited for Murder, Police Say
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A live-in caretaker in Everett has been charged with having her 13-year-old daughter and four other teenagers beat her client’s son to death with baseball bats, then using her two younger children to help clean up the home.
Barbara Marie Opel, 37, and her daughter’s 17-year-old boyfriend, Jeffrey James Grote, pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated first-degree murder in the death of Jerry Duane Heimann.
Police said Opel--hired by Heimann as a caretaker for his 89-year-old mother, Evelyn--planned to steal $40,000 from her boss.
According to court documents, the five teenagers ambushed Heimann, 64, at his home and beat him with baseball bats on April 13 as Opel shouted encouragement from the basement, where she waited with her two younger children.
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