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."

Strickland got plenty of freedom. As a child, he would roam the woods for hours, creating secret clubs with friends and racing his dirt bike on trails his uncle had cleared, said friends and his father.

At the age of 10 or 11, after learning a neighbor was pregnant with twins, he started tending to her, Beskind said. Strickland raided his parents' freezer and refrigerator of meat and vegetables each week, then set off down the road to cook dinner for her.

His care for people didn't fade as he grew older. On a family vacation in France this summer, Strickland befriended a homeless man whom a waiter shooed out of the restaurant where the Stricklands dined, his father said.

"Peyton asked if he could help this person with food," Don Strickland said. "Over the next three days that we were there, Peyton went to the grocery store around the corner and bought orange juice, bagels and other food items, and took them to the homeless person."

Friends say Strickland paid no attention to age and background when making friends.

This year, he got to know Wayne Wilson, 62, who was hired to help him paint the motorboat.

"He didn't see black and white; he didn't see young and old. He saw friends," said Wilson, who kept in touch with Strickland by offering fishing tips over the summer.

Strickland was always surrounded by friends. A rotating crew of boys and girls gravitated to the Stricklands' home, swimming in the family's pool and skateboarding on the half-pipe Strickland built there years ago.

Life in Wilmington

In Wilmington, Strickland was the center of his many social circles. His roommates were linked through him. Drew Gardner went to the Hill Center and Jordan High with him. Mike Rhoton had graduated from Jordan a year before. Braden Riley of Apex -- who also has been charged in the PlayStation robbery and assault -- became tight with Strickland after meeting him through a mutual friend, his father said.

The boys rented a modest brick house on Long Leaf Acres Drive, a quiet street where a dozen or more families have lived for decades. They partied like it was a fraternity house, neighbors have said, and they weren't welcome additions. Cops went there three times this fall to order them to turn down their music, records show.

The night Strickland died, police seized several marijuana pipes. Left behind were a dozen or so empty liquor bottles on the kitchen counter; crushed Budweiser cans littered the yard.

Typical teen stuff, friends of Strickland's family say.

"He was certainly no bad seed headed down the wrong path," Moore said. "He was a teenager -- stretching and testing."

Don Strickland said he never knew his son to have a problem with drugs or alcohol.

In Wilmington, Strickland thrived as a student. In his Cape Fear welding workshops four nights a week, Strickland wowed his welding instructor.

"He was a natural," said Rick West, who has taught welding for 30 years. "I could show him something once, and he'd be able to do it."

He also got in trouble in Wilmington. The last day of August, he came to blows with a UNCW student he met at a party. The student complained to police in September that Strickland had broken his jaw.

Strickland told his father that the boy shoved him first, Don Strickland said. He made his son handle the mess on his own. Strickland turned himself in to Wilmington police after an officer, B.W. Sommer, called to tell him he was wanted, Don Strickland said. When Strickland died, Sommer's card was tucked in his wallet.

Don Strickland said the matter was supposed to be squared away in court this month. The district attorney had agreed to delay prosecution if Strickland paid the other young man's medical bills.

As for the stolen PlayStations, Don Strickland didn't want to comment because two of his son's friends still have those charges lodged against them.

According to a search warrant, police suspected Strickland when an anonymous tipster identified him after watching a surveillance video of the Wal-Mart parking lot the night of the robbery. Police think Strickland and his two friends tailed Justin Raines, a UNCW student from Apex, from the lot back to his dorm, the warrant said.

When police called on Strickland the night he died, he and his roommate Rhoton were hanging out in the living room, playing a Tiger Woods golf video game.

This wasn't Strickland's style. He preferred the outdoors and rarely sat in front of a TV, his father said.

But Strickland had planned to get out the next day and was preparing for a major fishing expedition.

In his bedroom off the kitchen, the next day's fishing report flashed across his computer screen.

It promised easy waves and crisp winds. Perfect for landing speckled trout, flounder and puppy drum.

(News researchers Denise Jones and Brooke Cain contributed to this report.)

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