Teen victim suffered storms in life

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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the name of the judge in whose courtroom the suspects appeared Thursday.

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RALEIGH -- This fall, life bore down on Matt Silliman.

There was the on-again-off-again love affair with his girlfriend. His dad didn't like his new style: dyed hair and gothlike clothes. Since he turned 18 in August, he had set out to find the mother who gave him up for adoption when she was a teenager, said Taylor Cross, a friend from Apex High School.

"All of this was just stacking up," Cross said.

Matthew Josiah Silliman, 18-year-old Eagle Scout, was found dead Wednesday in a mobile home used for storage in the rural community of New Hill, in southwestern Wake County. Four teens, friends from western Wake County, have been charged with his killing.

In late September, Silliman posted on his Facebook page a vulgar and desperate message, then suggested he would kill himself. Two days later, he was in a psychiatric ward at Holly Hill Hospital in Raleigh, according to Cross and Silliman's Facebook postings.

So, when Silliman disappeared the night before Thanksgiving, friends assumed he had run away. His parents called police, concerned that their son had vanished without his medication. They told friends from church that he'd probably gone camping, said his Scout troopmaster, Bart Vashaw.

No one thought Silliman, who thrived outdoors, could be in danger.

"He was the kind of kid you could imagine dropping off anywhere and he'd find his way home," said Brian Blum, a Boy Scout leader. "He was that confident in the woods."

Thursday, a medical examiner studied Silliman's body for clues about how he met his death. Wake County Sheriff's investigators concluded it was murder the day before and arrested four suspects: Drew Logan Shaw, 16; Ryan Patrick Hare, 18; Allegra Rose Dahlquist, 17; and Aadil Shahid Khan, 17.

The teens, split among two high schools in western Wake County, were a tight group brought together by courtships and middle-school friendships.

A girl in a jail jumpsuit

One by one, the teens faced a Wake County District Court judge Thursday afternoon and heard just how deep their troubles are. Judge Jennifer Knox told them they were too young to be executed for the crime but could spend the rest of their days behind bars. Their relatives wiggled in the courtroom's hard benches, pressing tissues against their noses as they tried to catch the eye of their teenagers. Dahlquist stood 5 foot 2, her jail-issued jumpsuit swallowing her thin frame, surrounded by grown-ups using words such as "bond" and "indigent."

Each remained silent, nodding to indicate he or she had or needed an attorney.

Judge Knox sent all of them back to jail without bond and warned them to not say a word to one another.

Two of the suspects' families have already hired high-profile lawyers. Joseph Cheshire, who represents Dahlquist, said Thursday that it's too soon to know what happened, but that the tragedy of this case is touching many. Raleigh lawyer Douglas Kingsbery, who is representing Khan, said the teen is "terribly sorry" for Silliman's family.

According to arrest warrants, deputies believe the suspects killed Silliman on Nov. 30, four days after his parents reported him missing. Deputies haven't said what they believe happened in the days between or how Silliman died.

On Wednesday, Wake County Sheriff's investigators pulled Silliman's body from a deserted double-wide mobile home. The trailer belonged to Dahlquist's mother.