A 17-year-old murder suspect allegedly confided to a friend that he disarmed his girlfriend's mother and stabbed her to death because she was attacking her daughter in a drunken rage.

The reported confession - and possible motive - was spelled out in an affidavit made public Tuesday.

Jared Sajal Guy, 18, told investigators that his best friend, Bryan Grove, admitted that he killed 52-year-old Linda Damm in the midst of an out-of-control scene at the woman's house at 705 W. Brome Place in Lafayette.

The case has captured significant attention because Damm's daughter and her boyfriend apparently kept living in the house - playing loud music and partying - for weeks while the mother's body decayed in the trunk of a Subaru in the garage.

"Linda was drunk and chasing (her 15-year-old daughter) Tess around the room," Guy told Lafayette police, according to the affidavit. "Tess called Bryan and asked him to come over and help her.

"When Bryan arrived, Linda was choking Tess, so Bryan threw Linda off of Tess."

Bryan told Jared that "Linda came at him with a switch blade knife," the affidavit said. "Bryan then took the knife from Linda and stabbed her with it."

The Boulder County Coroner has ruled that Linda Damm, who had also used the name Linda Juergens, died of multiple stab wounds in the neck.

Acting on a tip, Lafayette police got a warrant and found Damm's body on Feb. 28. If the story Grove told Guy is true, then she was killed in late January or early February.

As more details about the case emerged, the head of a juvenile justice advocacy group urged prosecutors to avoid charging the teens as adults.

Mary Ellen Johnson, who heads the Denver-based Pendulum Foundation, said kids killing parents is a rare crime - with about 300 such cases a year in the United States - but that when it happens, it often stems from severe emotional, verbal or physical abuse. In a few cases it is the work of a sociopath or someone who is mentally ill, she said.

"I'm seeing all the red flags," she said. "The idea that the mother . . . everyone was saying, 'Gee, she was a really nice person' - that's what you always hear. But dig more deeply, there seemed to be alcohol problems.

"I hope they really look at these kids, show mercy and compassion rather than just try for retribution. I would be leery of saying that any of them are just cold-blooded killers."

District attorney's officials have declined to say how they plan to prosecute the teens. But the affidavit indicates that Grove will face a first-degree murder charge when he appears in Boulder County District Court this morning.

Tess Damm, and another friend of hers, Jared Smith, 16, are expected to be charged with accessory to murder after the fact, which carries a prison term of up to two years.

Guy is also being held for investigation as a possible accessory to murder because of his alleged role in burying, then digging back up, Damm's body, about a week after her death.

Guy told police he didn't believe his friend's story about the stabbing until Grove showed him the body. Guy balked for a while but eventually agreed to help Grove try to bury the body.

Here's the account he gave police, according to the affidavit:

First, they tried the Erie Landfill, but one of the cars - they drove an Acura and a Subaru - got stuck in the mud.

The next night, they chose Green Mountain Cemetery, near Guy's school, New Vista High School in Boulder.

Tess Damm, Grove and Guy were there. They dug for two and a half hours, from late at night to early the next morning - on Feb. 6, 7 or 8, Guy told police. The trio didn't dig the hole deep enough, so a lump of dirt remained. Then, they heard what they thought was a police officer, so the group quickly left for Lafayette.

Later that morning, but before sunrise, Grove and Guy went back to the cemetery, dug up the body, put it back in the Subaru and drove it back to the garage on Brome Place.

It apparently stayed there for three weeks, while Damm, Grove and other teens used the home.

Neighbors have said they would hear Tess Damm and her mother fight, and that sometimes it was about Linda Damm's drinking.

Tess Damm had posted comments to MySpace.com complaining about her mother's alleged alcohol habit.

Guy told police that Grove tried to act "upbeat" after the slaying, boasting at one point, "the house is mine now," according to the affidavit.

But the teen later broke down and confided that he had made a terrible mistake, his friend said.

"I feel horrible," Guy quoted Bryan as saying. "I don't know what is going to happen."

scanlon@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-442-8729

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