Robert Coombes: Their mother was visiting relatives, they said. Why then were they pawning her belongings? And what was that smell coming from their flat?
Dillan Easley: The hunting trip was meant to be a bonding opportunity for Michael and his foster son. It would turn into a war.
Ashley Jones & Geramie Hart: Getting in the way of teenage romance can be dangerous, especially when one of the teens involved is a psychopath.
Konrad Schafer: A gang of young thugs terrorize a city in a series of drive-by shootings. So far, no one has been hurt. That’s about to change.
Scott Kologi: New Year’s Eve in the Kologi household, the clock ticking down to midnight. Four members of the family won’t live that long.
Christopher Plaskon: A teenage girl is knifed to death in a school corridor. Did she really die for turning down a prom invitation?
Killer Kids Volume 15
Vincenzo Randazzo
But not everyone was willing to write the boy off. When Jake’s father knocked on the door of his neighbors, Phillip and Anita Lynch, one day in 2017, and returned a gun that his son had stolen from their property, the couple made no judgments. When Randazzo Sr. insisted that Jake make amends for the theft by doing chores for them, they graciously accepted. That was how Jake Randazzo became a regular visitor to the Lynch residence on Teton Street. It was how an unlikely friendship sprung up between the troubled teen and the elderly couple.
Phillip Lynch was an extraordinary man. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri in 1928, he later moved with his mother to New Orleans, where she worked as a realtor and property developer. But the pull of adventure was strong on the young man, and he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, serving in the Korean War as a fighter pilot. Later, after leaving the service, he sold single-engine airplanes, working out of Lakefront Airport. Then he followed his mother into realty. All the while, he played semi-pro football, turning out for a minor league team based in Kenner.
Phillip married and fathered five children with his first wife before the marriage ended. Then he met the woman he called the love of his life. Anita was 19 years his junior when they tied the knot in 1999. They remained deeply devoted to each other over the next two decades. By the time they met Jake Randazzo in 2017, Phillip was 89 years old, Anita 70.
Yet they were still remarkably active. Phillip was a go-getter with a lifetime habit of setting goals and then going out and achieving them. He maintained this discipline even as he approached his 90th birthday. He was also someone who believed in treating people with respect. Despite the unfortunate circumstances under which they’d met Jake, he and Anita treated the boy like their own grandson. They encouraged Jake to go out and achieve great things. And their kindness appeared to be wearing off on the boy. He seemed to be following Phillip’s counsel and staying out of trouble.
But Jake’s period of ‘community service’ was only for a specified time. All too soon, it was over. He’d paid his penance. Phillip and Anita hoped that it would not be the last they saw of him. They encouraged him to drop by any time he wanted. Jake thanked them for their kindness and said that he would. Perhaps inevitably, he broke that promise. The Lynches did not see him again until July 9, 2017, when Anita answered a knock at the door and was delighted to find Jake standing on the porch.
This was a different Jake than the boy they’d come to know. He was angry, agitated, on the verge of tears. Anita brought him inside and sat him down at the kitchen table. She called out to Phillip, and he came in holding a hammer, which he had been using to hang a picture. This he placed on a counter as he sat down to talk to Jake.
The boy had a story to tell. In a quavering voice, he explained that he’d been picked up for shoplifting at a local store. He hadn’t stolen anything, he swore, it was all a mistake. Nonetheless, the police were called, and Jake was brought home in a patrol car. This threw his father into a rage and the two of them got into a blazing row until Jake stormed off. Now he needed to get to Baton Rouge, 70 miles away. He wondered if Phillip would drive him.
Anyone who knew Phillip Lynch would tell you that he was the kind of man you could turn to in a pinch. If you needed a favor, he was the person you’d call. But this was different. Phillip simply could not drive a teenager out of town without his parents’ permission. It would amount to helping him run away from home. Calmly, he explained this to Jake. He’d be happy to drive him but only if his parents said it was okay.
This was not well received by the teenager. First, he started screaming obscenities. Then, he snatched up the hammer and attacked. Phillip was struck several times on the head and collapsed to the floor, where Jake continued the onslaught, raining down hefty blows on his skull. Anita bravely rushed in to defend her husband, but she was no match for the burly teen. She too was struck on the head, driven to the floor, beaten even as she lay there, helpless and exposed. Then, with his victims bludgeoned into submission, bleeding and unconscious, Randazzo broke off the attack, snatched up Phillip’s car keys from a counter, and left. He drove away in his victim’s car.
A short while later, a neighbor of the Lynches heard a faint knock at his front door. Going to answer it, he was shocked to find Anita on the doorstep, covered in blood and barely able to stand. The man immediately called 911, bringing police and paramedics racing to the scene. Phillip was found unconscious inside the house in a pool of blood. He and Anita were rushed to an area hospital, where Phillip went directly into surgery. He was in critical condition, with a severely fractured skull. Doctors would have to remove a fist-size portion of the carapace to relieve swelling on his brain. It was touch and go whether he’d make it.
But Phillip was a tough old bird with a strong will to live. His recovery over the days that followed astounded his doctors. Soon he was sitting up and talking to visitors. He was keen to begin his rehab work and was moved to a Kenner rehabilitation and nursing facility. Typical of the man, he bore no malice towards his attacker. He hoped that Jake would not be too harshly treated by the authorities and that he would receive the counseling that he so clearly needed. His main concern was for Anita, but she had received less serious injuries and was recovering well.
Jake Randazzo, meanwhile, was in police custody, having been arrested in Baton Rouge after he crashed Phillip Lynch’s car. He was being held at the Rivarde Juvenile Detention Center in Harvey, where he showed little remorse for what he’d done. Charged with two counts of attempted murder, he was claiming diminished responsibility. But things were about to get much more serious for the teenage thug. Three weeks after the attack, on August 4, Phillip Lynch took a turn for the worse and died.
The charge was now murder in the first-degree and with Randazzo to be tried as an adult, he was looking at the very real possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars. Still Randazzo hung tough, with his public defender filing a motion to have him declared mentally unfit to stand trial. That attempt at evading responsibility ultimately failed. Randazzo was declared competent. He was going to have to answer for his actions after all.
The situation for the defendant was hopeless now. With a living witness to the attack, he was going down. Aware of his predicament, his attorney approached the D.A. for a deal. His client would plead guilty and accept a sentence of 25 years to life. Prosecutors are generally inclined to accept such plea bargains. Criminal trials are expensive to run. This was much easier on the public purse.
And so, Jake Randazzo avoided the possibility of life without parole and will spend a minimum of 25 years behind bars instead. Randazzo’s lawyer swore during the sentencing phase that his client was remorseful for what he’d done but the killer did not take the stand to articulate those words himself. He certainly did not seem weighed down by conscience as he sat at the defense table. Rather, he looked bored and disinterested.
Christy Lynch Chauvin wasn’t buying Randazzo’s act. She berated the teen killer during her victim impact statement. “My father wished no evil to you,” she said. “He was a good dad, and I am so glad he was mine. If you ever change your life, if you are even half the man he was, your life will be a worthy one.”
“I have watched you during the trial,” Christy added. “You are not sorry for what you did. Hopefully one day, you will be.”
Vincenzo Randazzo is currently an inmate at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, a corrections facility that has a reputation as one of the toughest in the nation. He will remain here, at least, into his forties.
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