Report: Teen bragged about sexual exploits, visited child porn web sites

Strohmeyer, a 19-year-old Long Beach youth accused of sexually assaulting and murdering young Sherrice Iverson on May 25, 1997, faces trial in one month. The body of the South Central Los Angeles girl was found in a restroom in the Primm Valley Hotel in Primm, southwest of Las Vegas.

The Los Angeles Times, in addition to conducting interviews with friends, family members and others, reviewed court records, grand jury testimony, arrest reports and other various documents for a detailed portrait of Strohmeyer in its Sunday editions.

Through his attorney, Strohmeyer declined to be interviewed.

The teen, scheduled to go to trial Aug. 17 in Nevada, has been in custody since his arrest more than a year ago.

According to the Times, Strohmeyer had begun maintaining a sharply divided life in the months before the killing of Sherrice. Traditionally a good student with high ambitions, Strohmeyer started drinking heavily and using amphetamines prescribed by a therapist who diagnosed him as having attention deficit disorder. He kept a child pornography collection and bragged about sexual exploits with young girls in Singapore, the newspaper said.

Friends said he spent hours on the computer, logging on to the Internet to visit pornography sites. He downloaded hundreds of photos, stories and videos, mostly of child porn. The videos each depicted a man having sex with a child.

The father of one of Strohmeyer's friends, Justin Ware, said he overheard the teen-ager bragging about his sexual exploits in Singapore, where he first started drinking and mouthing off to his parents before moving to Long Beach in 1996. Strohmeyer claimed young girls would do just about anything for a pack of cigarettes in Singapore.

On May 23, 1997, Strohmeyer signed onto the Internet, using his moniker Flyboy1030 and corresponding with someone who identified himself as an 18-year-old man and went by the name Litlluvr, the Times reported.

"Do you like little girls?" Litlluvr asked.

"Very much so," Flyboy1030 responded.

"Cool, how young do you like 'em?"

"I've never had a chance to try anything, but I fantasize all the time. I don't know. Probably about 5 or 6," Flyboy1030 said.

Two days later, Strohmeyer met 7-year-old Sherrice while in Nevada with his friend David Cash Jr. and David's father. On their way to Las Vegas, the threesome stopped at the Primadonna casino, where the teens played in the arcade, waiting for David's father. Bored, the two urinated on some coin-operated games and Strohmeyer flirted with a 16-year-old girl, the Times reported.

Nearby, Sherrice played with a little boy and threw wadded-up wet paper towels at one another. Strohmeyer tossed a wad at the little girl and chased her around the arcade. When she went into the ladies' restroom, he followed her in, according to the Times.

Sherrice threw a yellow "wet floor" sign at Strohmeyer, grazing his arm. Strohmeyer later told police something "went haywire" when she did that. He told police that he picked up the little girl and carried her into the handicapped stall, molested her, squeezed her neck as she screamed and then snapped it.

He left her there, walked out of the bathroom and found Cash, who said his father was waiting for them. Cash asked what had happened.

Strohmeyer reportedly looked directly at him and answered, his voice calm: "I killed her."

Although police say Strohmeyer repeatedly confessed to the crimes, his defense attorneys tried unsuccessfully to get the confessions thrown out because they claim he was denied an attorney and never read his rights. Prosecutors say Strohmeyer was read his rights, waived his right to an attorney and talked freely.

Defense attorneys also claimed Strohmeyer was intoxicated from 37 pills of Dexedrine, an amphetamine, he took right before his arrest and was not in a state to answer questions. Strohmeyer had his stomach pumped, and medical personnel testified that Strohmeyer appeared alert and oriented.

Strohmeyer's attorneys have since learned that drug problems run in Strohmeyer's biological family, about whom he knew nothing until recently. He was adopted as a baby.

Strohmeyer's biological father is serving a 32-month sentence for possession with intent to sell marijuana and has spent the past 10 years in California prisons for drug-related crimes. Strohmeyer's birth mother had a drug problem and was confined to a psychiatric ward at the time of Strohmeyer's birth in her teens. She has been committed to a California state hospital for 11 years as a schizophrenic.

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