RIVERSIDE
A 16-year-old Tennessee boy, who fell in love with a Riverside
girl over the Internet and ran away from home to meet her, instead
fatally shot himself in the head just yards from the girl's front
door, authorities said.
Benjamin Murdock was found slumped over the wheel of his
father's maroon Ford Festiva with a gunshot wound to his head
shortly after 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, said Riverside County Deputy
Coroner Rick Bogan.His father's .22-caliber revolver, an American Automobile
Association road map and a bottle of water lay in the car beside
him, police said.The boy died Thursday at Riverside General Hospital, about 23
hours after he had been placed on a ventilator, Bogan said.Police and family members were trying to determine what caused
the boy to kill himself after driving two days from his Greenville,
Tenn., home to Riverside to meet in person the teen-age girl he had
fallen in love with a year ago over the Internet."It just doesn't make any sense at all," said Tamara Murdock,
the boy's mother. "He's just not the type to do something like
that."Murdock said her son told her he was going to return a
videocassette movie Monday afternoon when he took his father's car.After two hours, she and her husband, Roy, began to fear for their
son. They discovered that he had removed and apparently taken
clothing and a number of other items from his bedroom.About 46 hours later, Riverside police called to tell them
their son had apparently shot himself in the head.Benjamin was found slumped in the driver's seat of the car as
it sat in the middle of the roadway of the 2500 block of Cross
Street, just yards from the front door of the girl he had driven
nearly two days to see, said Riverside Police Sgt. Don Taulli.Police did not release the name and age of the teen-age girl.
"He apparently called her house when he arrived in Riverside
but got her sister instead and she told him the girl had gone to
San Diego" to visit, Taulli said."Then, for some unknown reason,
he stopped the car and shot himself in the head."The boy had attempted to run away from home twice before,
either hitchhiking or taking a bus, the sergeant said. Both times
he had gotten as far as New Mexico before calling home.This time he took his father's car and gun and packed most of
his belongings in the tiny subcompact. That fact confounded his
mother, who questioned why a teen-age boy would pack so much with
him if he intended to kill himself.Tamara Murdock said her son's relationship with the girl
included phone calls and letters."They spoke to each other and she even wrote him letters," she
said. "He never seemed to be upset or angry about his relationship
with her."She said Benjamin was looking forward to visiting his
36-year-old half-sister in a planned trip to California in August."Why would he make those plans if he knew he was going to kill
himself?<" she asked.
Zone: RIVERSIDE; HEMET-SAN JACINTO; TEMECULA-MURRIETA; SOUTHWEST; CORONA-NORCO; MORENO VALLEY;SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY