Initially, Marriam and three boys agreed to do the killing. They went to Heimann's bedroom with weapons but backed out.
Opel eventually recruited her daughter's new boyfriend, 17-year-old Jeff Grote. He found two mostly willing partners—buddy Kyle Boston, 15, and Boston's little cousin Mike (who would later say he agreed to help because the others "kept bugging me and bugging me"). Grote would get cash to buy a car and clothing; Opel agreed to pay Kyle and his cousin almost $300; Heather was to get a dirt bike; and Marriam, skate money.
Heather attended Evergreen Middle School in Everett.
Related Content
More About
Following Opel's plan, the boys took up positions as Heimann arrived home around 7 p.m. on Fri., April 13. Opel, Heather, Marriam, and Opel's two little kids scrambled into the basement.
As Heimann entered, Grote delivered the first blow with a baseball bat. The other boys began hitting Heimann in the face with miniature Mariners souvenir bats. The victim, covering and cowering, blurted, "Who are you? . . . What's going on?" Then he begged for help, prosecutors say.
Grote used a kitchen knife to stab the man as he lay on the floor. Opel, who'd been shouting directions and encouragement from the basement, sent up Heather and Marriam to attack with knives and bats. The girls stabbed Heimann repeatedly; Marriam finished him off with a sickening blow to the skull, prosecutors say.
Opel and all the kids carted Heimann's body in a wheelbarrow to a car, then used mops, sponges, and bleach to clean up the blood and brains. They dumped the body beside a road outside of town (en route, they picked up yet another teen, a girl who was later found guilty of rendering criminal assistance; she became Opel's 11th helper).
Mother Opel rewarded her little killers with a restaurant meal in Marysville. The next day, she rented a truck using Heimann's checkbook (she was already papering the town with thousands of dollars of his checks) and drove off with many of his belongings. Prosecutors say she at first considered killing her disabled charge, Eva Heimann, who has Alzheimer's, then decided to simply leave the woman to die. (She was miraculously found alive after four days in her wheelchair without nourishment, though she had eaten strips of newspapers.)
Opel and her five accomplices were quickly arrested. Prosecutors, calling the murder a "cold-blooded assassination," say all the suspects confessed (Grote pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Opel). Officials believe the youths, all from shattered homes, were especially vulnerable to Opel's bribes.
Minibat swinger Kyle Boston's parents had problems with "drug and alcohol abuse and domestic violence. . . . Both parents were absent from his life at various times due to critical convictions and resultant incarceration," court records state. He pleaded guilty to murder as an adult and will be sentenced—to up to 18 years—in June.
His cousin Mike's mother had a series of relationships with men and was "immersed in drug addiction," records state. When the boy was 9, his brother was shot and wounded by his mom's boyfriend. The 13-year-old pleaded guilty and faces seven years in juvenile jail.
Marriam Oliver's "first 13 months of life is a virtual case study of all the things parents can do to harm a child," court records state. Her "mother is an alcoholic and addict. Her mother continued to abuse drugs while pregnant with Marriam, [who] tested positive for cocaine at birth." Her father is unknown. Her trial for murder as an adult is tentatively set for May.
"The difficulty of [these cases]," said Judge Charles French, who decided that all but Mike would stand trial as adults, "lies in the contrast between the young age and development level of each of the [kids] and the vicious and gruesome nature of the alleged offense."
But this is not "about saving children," French said. "The court has no power to do so. Ultimately, the choices these children will continue to make will determine whether or not they will succeed."
Rick Anderson
randerson@seattleweekly.com
