Morgan's murderers to receive sentences

Daily Gazette, The (Schenectady, NY) - February 22, 1999

Author/Byline: Gazette Reporter, JIM McGUIRE
Edition: Schenectady Albany; Final
Section: Saratoga/Fulton/Schoharie
Page: B-05
JOHNSTOWN - The two men who have admitted holding opposite ends of the electrical cord they used to strangle their estranged friend,
John Morgan, will be sentenced today in Fulton County Court.

Lucas Whaley, an 18-year-old with a juvenile record going back to junior high, and his co-defendant, Theodore Cook, also 18, will be
sentenced in back-to-back appearances this morning before Judge Angelo D. Lomanto. Whaley, regarded by authorities as the instigator
of the March 17 murder, will receive 25 years to life. Cook, said to be an impressionable follower who took orders from Whaley, will get a
lesser sentence of 23 years to life.

Both pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Their co-conspirator, Amanda Dzierson, 21, of West Montgomery Street, Johnstown,
pleaded guilty to first-degree kidnapping and was sentenced in January to 20 years to life.

At his plea in January - the day his trial was to commence - Whaley told Judge Lomanto he was angry at Morgan, a 19-year-old former
group home resident and Johnstown High School dropout. He said he did not initially intend to kill Morgan, who owed the Cook family
nearly $900 in telephone bills and was indebted to Whaley for pay-per-view shows he ordered at Whaley's Gloversville apartment.

"I thought he set me up," Whaley told Lomanto, referring to an incident last winter in which Whaley was purportedly the victim of a
surprise assault at the hands of another boy at a Johnstown party.

Whaley admitted in January he tortured Morgan the night of March 16-17 before finally strangling him about 3:30 a.m. with a heavy
electrical cord and pouring bleach down his throat. While Whaley was careful at his plea not to implicate Cook, the latter had already
admitted at his plea that he held the opposite end of the cord as they both pulled it tighter around Morgan's neck.

On the day of the plea, Hoye said of the murder:, "Things got out of hand."

Dzierson, officials said, had a separate grievance against Morgan, blaming him for the circumstances of their failed romance.

"Lucas and Amanda hatched this whole idea," Hoye said, relating the chain of events that began when Amanda picked up Morgan at his
Fonda apartment the evening of March 16 and drove him to Cook's house. The conspirators were planning to "beat him, make him do
housework," Hoye said, "and then things got out of hand."

Whaley told Lomanto he grabbed a large stick and cracked Morgan across the kneecaps, hitting him several times.
Record: 1110FF67949E9221
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