Wilmington, a lively shore town 150 miles to the southeast, seemed the perfect spot for him after high school. Strickland, 18, loved to tinker and build; Cape Fear Community College's welding program was top-notch. His aunt lived nearby. A cast of Strickland's buddies from Durham had already gravitated there to study at the UNC-Wilmington or to learn trade skills at Cape Fear.

And there was the ocean. Strickland motored the 40-year-old fishing boat he rebuilt in the Atlantic's inlets every chance he got.

On Dec. 1, Strickland, a Jordan High School graduate, collapsed in the foyer of the rental home he shared with three friends as a New Hanover County Sheriff's deputy opened fire through his front door. Blaze, the German shepherd so attached to Strickland that the dog stopped eating after he went to college, was also shot and killed.

UNCW campus police had come to search for a PlayStation 3 video game console stolen two weeks before from a UNCW student. They meant to take Strickland and two other young men to jail that night on charges of stealing two of the game systems and beating the student who had camped out to buy them. The game machines, which retail for about $650 and draw much more in Internet auctions, hit stores Nov. 17.

UNCW police had braced for a struggle; a picture online of one of the suspects, Ryan David Mills, 20, of Durham, made them fear that the young men would be hiding out amid a small arsenal of guns. For the visit, police called for backup: a team of well-armed New Hanover County Sheriff's deputies specially trained in risky searches.

A team of agents from the State Bureau of Investigation spent last week trying to figure out why the visit went so wrong.

Those who love Strickland are trying to figure out how a boy they say is a peacemaker could have had such trouble land on his doorstep.

A different path

From the start, Strickland's parents knew their only son was wired differently, family friends say. He learned by doing, always trying to figure out how things worked.

"If it had pieces, Peyton took it apart," said Don Beskind, a family friend who practices civil law with Strickland's father, Don Strickland.

In the shed tucked away on the family's eight wooded acres off N.C. 751 in Durham, Strickland would strap motors onto things that didn't move. Once, he built a chopper motorcycle from scratch after watching people do it on television, his father said. The machine won him first prize in a custom motorcycle contest when he was 16.

For all his technical gifts, Strickland struggled in traditional classes, said Beskind and a family friend, Rick Hunter.

When he was 9, Strickland started attending the Hill Center at Durham Academy, a private school program for bright students who have learning disabilities. He shuttled between there and public school -- balancing a half-day in each.

Graduating from high school this spring was a milestone. On a page dedicated to him in the 2006 Jordan High yearbook, his family writes: "It's been a long hard road, but you did it and we're so proud of you."

Don and Kathy Strickland assured their only son that his passion for working with his hands was worth pursuing, family friends said. A cluster of lawyer friends whose children grew up together all committed to a similar parenting approach, said Kevin Moore, a family friend and Duke law school classmate of Don Strickland.

"We all didn't want our kids' spirits to be tethered," Moore said. "We all had strict fathers, and we wanted our kids to grow up and not be put upon."

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