19-year-old Robert Shafer and 16-year-old David Steinmeyer confessed to police that they had killed two men: Dennis Young and Jerry Parker. Shafer said they hitched a ride with the two victims, but that Young and Parker attacked them and left the killers no choice but to attack back in self defence. Two years later, Shafer changed his story and said they had planned to rob the victims because they were gay and would be "easy to rob." He said they forced the couple to drive them to a remote location where Shafer murdered them both. Shafer asked for the death penalty, but after arriving on death row, Shafer decided to appeal his sentencing.