WARREN - A one-time teenage murderer who toted around a sawed-off shotgun and led a young gang of ninja-dressed bandits was denied parole Tuesday.
Trumbull County prosecutors got word that Christopher Ferrell, now age 33, must continue to serve prison time until at least 2013.
Ferrell, who is behind bars in Mansfield Correctional Institution, was sentenced to life in prison with three concurrent 10- to 25-year sentences for the February 1992 murder of Douglas Lash of Newton Township.
Ferrell, formerly of Mineral Ridge, was 17 when he was arrested and bound over to a grand jury as an adult before taking a plea agreement in the case.
Police said his gang pulled off home invasions in western Pennsylvania, Portage, Geauga and Trumbull counties. Lash, the 19-year-old victim, had walked in on a break-in at the home he shared with his father.
Ferrell also was charged as a juvenile for terrorizing an elderly, deaf woman with a shotgun in Geauga County.
Assistant Prosecutor LuWayne Annos said Ferrell used a .22 semi-automatic pistol to shoot Lash execution style in the living room and then forced 13-year-old Thomas Elsmore to shoot Lash a second time with a .380 caliber handgun that had been purchased from Ferrell.
Elsmore, labeled the youngest killer ever in Trumbull County, could not be tried as an adult and was sentenced to serve time until he reached age 21.
''As one of the original prosecutors in this case, I can say without hesitation that Christopher Ferrell is wholly unworthy of any grant of parole. He accumulated an impressive - if not staggering - criminal history before killing Douglas Lash,'' Annos wrote in a letter to the parole board opposing a release.
''He expressed no remorse for this killing. And, in fact, tired to get Elsmore to take full responsibility for the shooting because he was only 13 and too young to be tried as an adult,'' Annos wrote.