2 Accused In Slaying An Unlikely Pair

WASHINGTON - Marine Sgt. Ray Price remembers the odd couple who walked into his recruiting office in Rockville, Md., two months ago: one of the 17-year-old boys was cocky and "thuggish," at once fidgety and "aggressive." The other was focused, respectful and carried himself like a leatherneck.

Aaron Benjamin Needle quickly blew any chance of enlisting by admitting that he had taken drugs and had been sent to special schools for severely disruptive students.

But the strikingly muscular Samuel Sheinbein was another story. Price was ready to sign him up. "He was extremely qualified," Price recalled of Sheinbein, but the teenager was underage and predicted that his parents would never give their permission. So Price wished them luck.

Last month, when the sergeant heard the names of the two Montgomery County, Md., teenagers who are accused of killing a young Silver Spring, Md., man, then burning and dismembering his body, he remembers saying to himself: "I know those two."

Price learned that Sheinbein's background was not as clean as it had seemed: The boy had been charged with burglary and theft and had done time in a juvenile boot camp. Still, Price remained puzzled by the two boys' starkly different personalities.

"It was hard for me to understand how either of them would develop a friendship for the other," he said.

Yet they both seemed eager to get away from something, to start anew. Needle "wanted to get himself on track, get his life together," Price said. "I think he knew he was heading down the road to disaster."

Both boys arrested

Last month, Sheinbein and Needle were arrested in the slaying of Alfredo Enrique Tello Jr., 19. The burned and dismembered body was found in the garage of a vacant house near Sheinbein's home in Aspen Hill, in suburban Washington, D.C.

Needle was arrested in Greenbelt, Md., and is being held in the Montgomery County jail. Sheinbein fled to Israel, where deliberations over whether to extradite him have spiraled into an international incident, with members of Congress threatening to withhold U.S. aid to Israel unless the high-school senior is sent home.

The Sheinbein family's attorney, Paul Stein, said the youth came from a family with stresses that he is just beginning to explore. "I think you start from the premise that there's dysfunction in every family," Stein said. "I think that a family study obviously is going to be necessary to understand this thing."

Friends and acquaintances paint a picture of two privileged teenagers with a history of trouble with drugs and the law, with strained family relations and few close friends.

Friends who remember Sheinbein from his days at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville say he was smart but fascinated with crime. When Sheinbein was in eighth and ninth grades, he was breaking into cars and houses, according to police sources and Sheinbein's friends.

Friends say they saw the stereo equipment and other booty Sheinbein had lifted and saw the gloves and the rubber Richard Nixon mask that Sheinbein said he used in his capers.

"He was like a mastermind. Stuff you hear about people doing, he could really do - like use credit cards to open doors, disarm burglar-alarm systems," said a 17-year-old classmate who said he has known Sheinbein since ninth grade.

Sophia Umanski, 17, a senior at Walt Whitman High School who knew Needle at Whitman and Sheinbein at the Jewish day school, said of Sheinbein: "Back then, he seemed eager to commit crimes."

But when Sheinbein told the Marine recruiter that he had not been in trouble with the law, he was not telling the truth. He had been caught stealing from houses, charged with burglary and theft and spent several months in a juvenile boot camp, according to police sources. Afterward, friends noticed a difference.

Sheinbein had bulked up considerably; he said he got into fights with inmates and was humiliated by guards, so he worked out to become strong enough to keep himself from being overpowered again, friends said.

Sheinbein also came back more focused on details, on always finding just the right way to do things.

"He makes everything like a science, right down to things like the best way to get to school," said Jay Jaber, who knew Sheinbein at John F. Kennedy High School. "He started doing that ever since he was caught breaking into houses. He was so determined not to get caught again."

Sheinbein began amassing special equipment such as police scanners. In his car he kept a whirling light, the kind police officers driving unmarked cars use, police and friends said.

His determination not to be arrested again is the only explanation his friends can offer for his possible involvement in such a grisly crime.

"They must have killed (Tello) by accident and then tried to hide the evidence," Jaber said. "Sam would do anything to stay out of prison again."

Many other of Sheinbein's friends say he appeared to have straightened out after his stint in boot camp. He mowed lawns and held down part-time jobs in a hardware store and a supermarket. He could be seen in the neighborhood working on cars or his motorcycle.

He worked out regularly at a local gym.

Quiet, shy and smart

Most students at Kennedy say they don't know Sheinbein well, and what little they could say about him was always the same: quiet, extremely shy, didn't talk much in class, seemed smart, took honors classes.

The few who knew him better said he had a warm, generous side but could be intense and nasty to anyone who angered him. Jaber recalled a time last year when the two of them got into a dispute over an stereo amplifier Jaber had sold him. Sheinbein wanted his money back.

"I came out to the parking lot at school, and he had put a chain and a motorcycle lock around my car so I couldn't leave," Jaber said.

Sheinbein also turned threatening in the spring when a girl who had had a long platonic relationship with him spurned his romantic overtures, according to several students. Sheinbein broke into the girl's locker with bolt-cutters and stole an expensive jacket and other items, according to Stein and schoolmates. He also sent an angry message to her pager - 343, the numbers corresponding to "D-I-E."

"Everyone said stay away from him after that," a classmate said.

Needle, who lived in an affluent neighborhood in Rockville, had bounced in and out of regular schools and special schools for children with behavioral problems, including a private military academy. His family once said in a court filing that Needle was addicted to drugs and threatened suicide.

Friends describe Needle as more sociable than Sheinbein but possibly more troubled.

"He can put on a front where he seems smart and OK, but then other times, he seems like he's just ready to burst," Jaber said.