By Guy Leonard, County Times
LEONARDTOWN, Md.—Corey Ryder, the 17-year-old juvenile accused of trying to hire an undercover police officer to kill his mother and stepfather earlier this year admitted to the crime in county Circuit Court on Friday, Nov. 2.
Ryder, of Valley Lee, took a plea deal to a count of solicitation of murder of his mother rather than face first-degree attempted murder charges.
Ryder will receive his disposition for the crime, Nov. 27 according to his attorney Public Defender John Getz.
Getz would not discuss the case in-depth but said that his client was in the custody of the Department of Juvenile Services.
Ryder has been incarcerated at a youth facility in Cheltenham since he was charged with the crime back in June.
“There’s a lot of mitigating circumstances regarding this case,” Getz said. “Under all the circumstances he’s [Ryder] doing well.”
The defense won a major victory in September when Circuit Court Judge Karen Abrams ruled that Ryder, who had a history of treatment with juvenile services for infractions of the law, should still receive treatment rather than serve time in prison.
The prosecution in the September court date argued that Ryder was a grave threat to the safety of his parents Shannon and Joseph Troiano and had physically assaulted his mother prior to the murder plot and had threatened to kill his mother.
All these incidents led to his being thrown out of his home, according to court testimony.
Counselors who worked with Ryder after the plot was uncovered testified at the September hearing that Ryder had grown to become remorseful over his actions and was trying to turn his life around.
His mother testified that her son simply knew how to work the system, tell counselors what they wanted to hear to successfully pass treatment programs and that her son, though she still loved him, remained a threat.
His trail in juvenile court assured that Ryder would never face jail time in a Department of Corrections facility or in the county detention center for the murder-for-hire plot.
Police began investigating Ryder when they learned that he was seeking to hire an assassin to kill his parents from an informant back in June.
Detectives from the Bureau of Criminal Investigations set up a sting operation at a local hotel to catch Ryder in the act of soliciting murder.
When Ryder met with an undercover detective in June to discuss details of the plot, according to charging documents, they discussed payment for the murders.
When asked how Ryder wanted the killings done, charging documents stated, he said, “two bullets is all it takes.”
Detectives who were conducting video and audio surveillance of the meeting moved in to apprehend Ryder, who was taken without incident and charged.