RALEIGH -- Allegra Dahlquist, one of four teens accused in the 2008 overdose and beating death of an Eagle Scout from Apex High School, pleaded guilty today to second-degree murder and several conspiracy charges.
Matthew Silliman, 18, was found dead in late November 2008 at a vacant mobile home owned by the parents of Dahlquist.
Prosecutors say Dahlquist was among a group of teens who beat Silliman on the head with a hammer, bound his arms and legs with zip ties, stretched duct tape across his mouth and wrapped a bag around his head.
His body was found in a sleeping bag, according to a medical examiner's report.
Assistant District Attorney Jason Waller told Judge Paul Ridgeway today in a brief court session that Dahlquist had been part of a plot hatched over the month before Silliman was found dead on the property where the teens often gathered.
Dahlquist had been in a relationship with Silliman, Waller said, without elaborating on details. The teenager, in court today in a gray and white jail jumpsuit, also had a relationship with the lead suspect in the case — Ryan Hare, a 19-year-old who entered a not guilty plea today to first-degree murder and other charges against him.
Hare, according to a quick rundown of the case by Waller, started plotting the death of Silliman on Oct. 31, 2008, after his brief relationship with Dahlquist.
Aidil Khan and Drew Shaw also are charged with the killing of Silliman. In previous court hearings, prosecutors and defense attorneys have acknowledged that plea arrangements similar to the one offered to Dahlquist had also been Khan and Shaw.
Dahlquist was not sentenced Friday. As part of her plea arrangement, she agreed to testify in the trial of Hare. Once that case was resolved, the prosecutor said, she would be sentenced.
The case was one that shook the Apex High School community.
In the hearing today, Waller laid out a brief summary of what happened in late November 2008.
On one night, late in the month, the teens, in two vehicles, picked up Silliman and took him for a ride. Dahlquist was driving a Toyota 4Runner as they traversed Wake County roads. While they were in the western part of the county, according to court testimony, a CD was plugged in that was supposed to signal others to wrap something around Silliman's neck from behind, and then use a Taser stun gun to shock him.
The Taser did not work, according to Waller, and after that Dahlquist pulled over to the side of the road and Silliman got out of the Toyota. But because Silliman knew Dahlquist, Waller said, Silliman got back in the vehicle. He got out at a video store later that night, but then was taken to the abandoned property where he eventually was found dead.
Dahlquist visited him.
She and others had devised a plan, according to Waller, to tell Silliman, who struggled with mental health issues, that a man named Roger was after him. They also told Silliman, Waller said, that they would take him to a train station so he could leave town.
That didn't happen, Waller said.
Before his death, Dahlquist had read Silliman Tarot cards to distract him, Waller said. She also read him an e-mail message from a female acquaintance of his in Washington, D.C.
On the night Silliman was tied up and suffocated, Waller said, he had been drinking wine mixed with horse tranquilizers.
Reports from the medical examiner show that Silliman died from asphyxiation, though he also had a level of the antidepressant bupropion in his system that was potentially fatal.
