Murder suspect who killed girl said he planned to kill himself

CLAYTON, Mo. -- A Missouri high school senior said he murdered and raped a girl from his school because he planned to kill himself and wanted to be with her.

The victim, Erin Mace of Fenton, was found dead Friday inside a burning SUV in St. Louis County.

Her funeral was held Thursday.

Alexander Stirlen, 17, of the St. Louis suburb of Sunset Hills was arrested Sunday night. He told KSDK-TV and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Wednesday that he was depressed.

He said after killing Mace, he planned to die, too, but said that part of his plan "didn't work out."

"If I'm going to commit suicide, I wanted to be with the person I loved," Stirlen said while at the St. Louis County Justice Center.

Stirlen is charged with beating, strangling and raping Mace, 16, near a Mississippi River levee in East Carondelet, Ill. He then tried to cover up the crime by burning her vehicle in St. Louis County, authorities said.

He said he and Mace talked about school and friends for about 40 minutes at the levee.

"I wasn't sure I was going to do it." Then, he said something took over. He knows he hit Mace with the baseball bat, but said he didn't remember holding it in his hands.

"I took no pleasure in hurting her," he said. Raping her "was just a way to be with her, period. A way to condense the entire relationship into an hour or so."

Stirlen said about three weeks ago, Mace told him she was interested in another teen. He claimed that did not prompt the killing.

He claimed he was not motivated by anger or jealousy. He said he deserves to be punished to the fullest extent allowed by law.

Stirlen's defense lawyer, Paul Yarns, tried to put a gag order on his client to keep him from talking to the media. A judge declined to issue the gag order, although she said Stirlen clearly wasn't following his lawyer's advice when he talked to the media.

Stirlen said he came up with the plot on Sept. 28, two days before he carried it out. He said after killing Mace, he planned to drive to a gas station and douse her SUV with gasoline. He would set a fire that would kill them both, and he wanted it to look like an accident.

"I wanted to die after I did it," he said. "But things didn't work out."

Stirlen posted an electronic journal on a St. Louis punk music Web site for months before the crime. In his postings, he repeatedly refers to marijuana and alcohol use. He said they did not play a role in the attack.

"Well, to be honest, the day that this all happened I was completely sober."

Stirlen said he had his heart broken repeatedly, and in his Web postings he said he had liked a number of girls.

Stirlen said he was failing classes he needed to pass to graduate; he thought college plans would need to be put on hold. He moved out of his family's home earlier this year. But he said he worried that his landlady, who required good grades as a condition of letting him stay, would evict him. He owed people money but had no job.

Stirlen said he attempted suicide nine months ago, by taking a bottle of a friend's attention deficit disorder medicine. He spent a week at a hospital's behavioral health center and saw a psychologist.

Stirlen said while he was sorry for what he'd done, he knows his friends consider it unforgivable. "I'm not asking for forgiveness, I'll never ask for that. The point of this interview would be to ask for understanding."