When Donna and Wayne married, it seemed as if Will and Josh's hard times might finally be behind them. The boys hit it off so well that bringing the two families together was easy. They both dug 50 Cent and Tony Hawk and the PlayStation 2. After the wedding, Will and Donna moved to Newport to live in Wayne's house. Buoyed by the prospect of good times, the parents transformed the basement into the kids' ultimate playpen: a giant screen TV, a foosball table, posters and pennants of race cars, their very own microwave. Will slept here on a futon under a blanket with the words "Hot Hot Hot" written in flames.

Video games were among their favorite distractions. Paul Buckner, Josh's 19-year-old stepbrother from Wayne's previous marriage, gave Josh "Grand Theft Auto III" for his birthday. "When I came downstairs, I'd just see them crashing in their cars," said Donna. "I didn't know you could kill prostitutes and stuff like that." The violence she witnessed, though, was enough to give her pause. "You realize this is virtual reality, not reality," she told the boys. They nodded, and returned to their game.

Though they had a great time together, things were more difficult, particularly for Will, when they were apart. Because Will was older, he had to go to a different school than Josh and manage on his own. After classes, Will's guidance counselor, Karen Smith, would see him outside her window wandering the parking lot. "He'd be off by himself," she said. "He was a bit of a loner," said his driver's-education teacher. "He only had a couple of friends. I told him to watch out, because there were other kids here who were taking advantage of him." Girls would ask Will for money, and wanting to be liked, he'd hand over the cash, never to be repaid.

After school and on weekends, Will fell eagerly under Josh's wing. While Josh was younger and smaller, he was the town veteran and eagerly assumed the role of Batman to Will's older and taller Robin. And Will, somewhat slow by nature, needed all the help he could get. "Will is a little more down-the-stream relaxed," said one friend, "and Josh is the hard-core whitewater rafter."

To prove his loyalty, Josh steered Will into the arms of his ex-girlfriend, Amanda Hetherington -- a smart and iconoclastic 13-year-old with long dark hair and blue paw prints painted on her fingernails. Amanda wrote moody poetry, listened to Marilyn Manson, and was known as one of Newport's only female skaters. She was a cheerleader, but the sort that would be portrayed by Christina Ricci. She hated it. "It's just something to do," she said.

On weekend nights while watching horror movies, Will and Amanda bonded over their disdain of Newport. "There's nothing to do here but stare at the dots in the ceiling," Amanda would say. And, though different, they shared a feeling of being outcasts among the ruling kids of Cocke County. "The rednecks have power over everyone here," Amanda lamented. She thought it was cute that Will refused to wear a jacket emblazoned with the name of the school's embarrassing mascots, the fighting cocks.

Back at home, it began to seem that Josh was leading Will into more than just a new relationship. He was leading him into trouble. One day, out by the creek behind their house, the two went out shooting with their pellet rifles. Wayne, in one of his father-son bonding excursions, had taken the boys out target shooting with his .22 rifle. They spent the day shooting at cans floating down the water. This time, Josh struggled to aim at his target. When he fired, a pellet flew at a rock, bouncing back and lodging in Will's neck.

But it didn't deter them. One day later, about six months before the fatal shootings, Wayne caught the boys sitting in his bedroom cleaning his .22 rifles that they had taken from his closet. "You do not ever, ever do that," admonished Wayne, who seldom raised his voice with the boys. He grounded them for a week, and dead-bolted his bedroom door whenever he left the house. When he was home, it would remain unlocked.

Recent Stories