2 Convicted of Tossing Boy From Window

Two boys accused of throwing a 5-year-old boy to his death from a 14th-floor window were found delinquent of first-degree murder on Wednesday, a ruling that may keep them in custody for five years.

Cook County Juvenile Court Judge Carol A. Kelly also set a Nov. 14 sentencing date for the two boys, who were 10 and 11 at the time of Eric Morse’s death last October.

The shocking cruelty of their crime--which took place in a vacant Chicago Housing Authority apartment, allegedly because Eric wouldn’t steal candy for the older boys--outraged Chicago, where an 11-year-old had been slain by members of his own gang two weeks earlier.

The prosecution’s witnesses included police and Eric’s brother, Derrick Lemons, who fought the two boys in an effort to save his brother and then ran down 14 flights of stairs. He hoped to catch him, he testified Tuesday.

Defense attorneys presented no witnesses at the hearing but argued the boys were functionally illiterate and could not understand what was happening when police questioned them.