A 14-year-old Hempfield Township teen bludgeoned his only sibling to death with a claw hammer April 19 because he thought his brother was a homosexual, witnesses testified Tuesday during a preliminary hearing.

Ian Bishop, of 307 Laurentz Lane, also wanted to kill his parents because he was angry that they barred him from seeing his girlfriend, witnesses said.

Bishop and his alleged accomplice, Robert Laskowski, 15, of 516 Buckingham Drive in the township's Wendover section, were ordered yesterday by Youngwood area District Justice James Falcon to stand trial for first-degree murder and related charges for killing Ian's brother, Adam, 18, in the Bishops' home in Bovard.

Falcon ruled there was sufficient evidence for both teens to stand trial as adults after listening to 5 1/2 hours of testimony from six witnesses called by Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck and Assistant District Attorney Wayne Gongaware.

Ian Bishop and Laskowski, both freshmen at the high school, pleaded not guilty to the charges, and their respective attorneys, Tom Ceraso and Lee R. Demosky, both said yesterday they intend to pursue hearings to have the teens tried as juveniles.

The preliminary hearing yesterday was the first time since the brutal after-school murder of Adam Bishop, a Hempfield Area High School senior, that authorities have mentioned a motive for the slaying and the plot to kill Ian's parents, Jeffrey and Karen Bishop.

"It's my understanding from talking to Rob (Laskowski) that Ian was upset at not being allowed to see his girlfriend, Carrie Borg (also a student at the school). Ian also was mad at his brother, Adam, because he took his parents' position," state police Trooper Kirk D. Nolan testified.

Nolan said that last winter Ian Bishop, a member of the school track squad, had gotten in trouble at school for smoking cigarettes, and his parents blamed the episode on Borg's influence.

Nolan's statement about the motive came during cross-examination by Laskowski's attorney, Demosky, who had asked the trooper whether Laskowski told him that Ian Bishop planned to kill his family because he was mad at his parents after they cut off his relationship with his girlfriend, "and Adam was making up certain things about him and telling his parents."

Nolan testified that Laskowski told him Ian had planned the attack for three days, and that Laskowski had gone to Bishop's home after school to assist in the attack. However, Laskowski told Nolan he never struck Adam.

After arriving at the Bishop home at about 3:30 p.m., Laskowski told Nolan, Ian and Laskowski went into Ian's second-floor bedroom and talked for five or 10 minutes.

"Rob said Ian showed him a club and then said, "I'll be right back." Adam was the only other person at home and he was sitting in the computer room, which is right across from the bedroom," Nolan said.

"In about 30 seconds, Mr. Laskowski said he heard a thud and saw Adam lying on the floor of the computer room, and Ian had a hammer," Nolan said.

Laskowski told Nolan that he saw Ian strike Adam on the head with the hammer about five more times as he lay(cq) on the floor. Then Ian pulled his brother out into the hallway and struck him at least five more times on the head, Nolan quoted Laskowski as saying.

"Laskowski told me Adam began to cry at some point, and Ian told him to shut up, and Ian struck him three or four more times. Sometime during the attack, Mr. Laskowski said they turned up the music in Ian's bedroom," Nolan said.

Although Laskowski had told Ian he would help him kill Adam and his parents, Nolan said Laskowski told him he could not go through with it. However, he said that Laskowski admitted helping Ian carry his mortally wounded brother from the hallway and place him facedown in a bathtub, then watching Ian turn on the water.

"He (Laskowski) said at one point, because of the noise Adam was making and the sound (during the attack), that he had to go downstairs to the first floor," Nolan said.

Laskowski's description of the beating concurred with Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht's autopsy report, which indicated Adam was hit at least 18 times in the head.

After beating his brother, Ian went to Westmoreland Mall, about three miles from the Bishop home, at about 4:30 p.m., according to the testimony of three witnesses.

Heather Exton, 15, a Hempfield freshman, and her boyfriend, Jesse Brown, a 2001 Hempfield graduate, said they ran into Ian near the food court, where Bishop described the attack in vivid detail.

"What was his demeanor?" Peck asked Exton.

"He (Bishop) didn't care. He was laughing ... not ha, ha ... but giggling," Exton said.

Exton said Ian told her that he was mad at his parents for not letting him see Borg.

"And Ian said his brother, Adam, was a faggot," Exton said.

Exton also testified that some classmates thought Ian's friend, Laskowski, is a homosexual.

At one point during her testimony, Exton broke into tears as she told Falcon how Ian described his brother's condition to her as he and Laskowski put him into the bathtub and turned on the shower.

"Ian said it was bubbling," Exton said.

"What was bubbling?" Peck asked.

"His (Adam's) brain," Exton said.

Brown, of Slate Run Road, testified that he knew Adam Bishop before April 19, but had never met Ian before that day at the mall.

"Lindsay Myers (a friend of Exton's) had asked us to talk to Ian in the bathroom. He was outside ... he came up to me ... I knew it was him because he looked like his brother," Brown said.

"He (Ian) said he killed his brother. No one took him seriously ... he sounded pretty calm when he was talking," Brown said. "Ian said he hit Adam with a hammer and billy club. He also said he should have got his parents."

Brown said Ian was looking for a ride out of town. However, the trio "hung out" at the mall for about three hours before leaving in Brown's car.

Brown said the entire time the three teens were walking in the mall, Ian was "eating pills." Brown said the pills were Coricidin HBP Cough and Cold tablets. The over-the-counter medicine contains dextromethorphan, known as DXM or Dex, which is a relative of opiates.

The Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center issued an alert in 2000 that 13- to 19-year-olds were abusing Coricidin. The teens were seeking what they described as an LSD-like high from the tablets, which many users said they learned about over the Internet.

Under cross-examination, Brown told Demosky that he didn't take any pills and did not count how many Ian ingested.

"They make you act stupid," Brown said.

Brown said Ian went with him and Exton when Brown drove her home to retrieve a sweater. He said Ian asked him to stop at the high school so he could pick up books from his locker.

During the drive, Brown said he noticed Ian had blood spots on his left ear and on a foot.

After retrieving the books at the high school and Exton's sweater, the trio drove back to the mall and then to a home in South Greensburg. Brown said it was at the friend's home that he learned that Ian was telling the truth about killing his brother.

He said the people who lived at the house asked them to leave.

"They got a telephone call that Ian put his brother in the hospital and he (Adam) was dying. At that point, I knew he had done something," Brown said.

Brown said they left the house and dropped off Ian and his books at Wendover Middle School, where he was arrested by state police at about 1 a.m. April 20.

Laskowski was arrested at his home by state police at 9:30 p.m. that day.

Another classmate of Ian's, Rebecca Ann Ballew, 15, of Youngwood, said she also ran into Ian at the mall that night of the killing. Ballew said she dated Adam Bishop late last year.

"Ian told me in February he wanted to kill them (his family). They wouldn't let him see his girlfriend," Ballew said.

"When Ian came up to me at the mall, I could see his pupils were dilated. He came up and said he needed to get away from here, that he and his brother had got into a fight ... nothing real big the way he talked. It was just like he hit him," Ballew said.

Ballew said she was going to join Brown, Exton and Bishop on the drive, but got out of the car when she got a call on her cellular telephone from Myers saying that Ian had indeed severely injured his brother and that Adam was not expected to survive.

"I asked Ian if it was really true, and he said yes. I got out of the car and went back into the mall and stayed until about 9:30 p.m.," Ballew said.

Ballew said under questioning by Gongaware that Ian described to the other teens how after the beating "Adam's brains were showing."

"Ian said he did it with a hammer," Ballew said.

Under cross-examination by Ceraso, Ballew said she remembered Brown telling Ian during the evening that he was going to take him out drinking to congratulate him for killing his brother.

All of the teens said that Ian admitted that he beat his brother while Laskowski watched.

Another friend, Mathew Bumbaugh, testified that Ian telephoned him after the attack and asked him to come to the house, admitting that he had beaten his brother with a hammer. Ian asked him to "bring a gun," Bumbaugh said.

Bumbaugh said when he and his mother arrived, Laskowski was at the front door and Ian was on the stairway, holding a gallon of milk.

Both Bumbaugh and his mother, Terri Ann, said Ian and Laskowski directed them upstairs to the bathtub. The Bumbaughs said they noticed that Ian was wearing bloody socks and the upstairs hallway floors and walls were covered with blood.

"You could see (on) the inside of Adam's head there was a 3- or 4-inch-diameter hole in the back. Ian looked like a zombie ... no emotion like the Ian I knew before this," Mathew Bumbaugh said.

"I told Ian to shut off the water or his brother would drown ... and he said that might be good," Terri Bumbaugh said.

Mathew Bumbaugh, who has been home-schooled since the incident, said the Bishops' parents also had forbidden Ian from seeing Bumbaugh for two weeks before the attack. The reason for their breaking off that friendship was not disclosed.

Terri Bumbaugh said she saw Ian change clothes in his bedroom while she was caring for Adam before paramedics arrived. She said Ian and Laskowski fled the house on foot before an ambulance arrived.

In his closing statement, Peck said described the evidence as "nothing short of overwhelming with the 18 blows to the head ... the attempted drowning."

Although Laskowski did not strike Adam, Peck said Laskowski was Ian's "courage, or backbone."

"There's clear evidence of premeditation here. He hated his brother because he thought he was homosexual, and he hated his parents because they kept him from Carrie Borg," Peck said.

Laskowski's parents, Matthew and Susan, sat behind their son during the hearing, while Jeffrey Bishop sat near Ian. The parents talked with their sons during breaks in the proceedings, but did not appear to converse with one another.

Bishop and Laskowski were in blue prison jumpsuits, their hands and feet shackled. Neither teen showed any emotion during the testimony, but Bishop appeared to nervously rub his thumbs and fingers together.

Moments after Falcon ordered both teens to stand trial for the killing, Jeffrey Bishop leaned over his son's shoulder and kissed him on the cheek, appearing to console him. None of the parents spoke with the media.

Paul Peirce can be reached at ppeirce@tribweb.com or (724) 837-5374.