Murder of Jason Sweeney

Jason Sweeney
Jason Sweeney c. 2003
Born	Jason Keel Sweeney July 29, 1986 Fishtown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	May 30, 2003 (age 16) Fishtown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Cause of death	Murder
Occupation	Construction worker
Parent(s)	Paul and Dawn Sweeney

Jason Keel Sweeney was a teenage construction worker from Fishtown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who at the age of 16, was murdered by four teenagers for his paycheck on May 30, 2003. The perpetrators included a girl he was dating and his best friend since childhood. Due to the manner in which Sweeney was murdered, the age of the teens involved, and the seeming indifference of the perpetrators, the crime received national media coverage.

Jason Sweeney had left school and was working for his father, a contractor, on a building project in Philadelphia. He had recently met a girl he liked, 15-year-old Justina Morley, with whom he had a date on the evening of Friday, May 30, 2003. Unbeknownst to Sweeney, Morley was regularly engaging in sexual relations with two other 16-year-olds, Nicholas Coia and Edward Batzig Jr. Batzig was Sweeney's best friend since the fourth grade. Nicholas Coia and his 17-year-old brother, Domenic Coia, had also been friendly with Sweeney, but the brothers later ended the friendship.

With the promise of sex, Morley lured Sweeney to "The Trails," a wooded area of Fishtown near the Delaware River, where Batzig and the Coia brothers were lying in wait. Batzig took the first blow, striking Sweeney in the head 4 to 5 times. Batzig and the Coia brothers then pummeled Sweeney, primarily on his head and face, with a hatchet, a hammer and a rock until he was dead. Batzig later told a detective how he hit Sweeney with the hatchet face four or five times. Batzig said, "Jason started begging for his life, but we just kept hitting him." Batzig also said that Sweeney looked at him during the beating and said "Please stop, I'm bleeding," after which Batzig hit Sweeney again with the axe. They finished by dropping a boulder rock on the right side of his head. Sweeney's head was crushed and the only bone left undamaged was his left cheekbone. He was identified by a cut on his hand that he sustained at his construction job.

Following Sweeney's murder, the four assailants stole the $500 cash he had earned from work. Before leaving the crime scene, the Coias, Batzig and Morley shared a group hug and split the money, which they used to buy jewelry and illegal drugs—heroin, marijuana and Xanax—and then "partied beyond redemption," according to Domenic.