Teenager Admits to Trying to Have His Mother Killed

A Southern Maryland teenager admitted in court yesterday that he tried to hire a hit man to kill his mother, a plea that his parents said is the first step toward having a family relationship with him again.

Cory Ryder, 17, said little as St. Mary's County Circuit Court Judge Michael Stamm asked whether he understood the accusations against him. "Yes, sir," he said quietly as his mother, stepfather and several relatives sat behind him.

Ryder didn't look their way, but after his plea, his attorney asked the judge if his client could speak alone with his mother. Stamm agreed, and Ryder's mother was led to a small room. She spoke with Ryder for about 35 minutes. It was the first time Shannan Troiano had faced her son, other than seeing him in court hearings, since before his arrest in early June.

As their talk came to an end, Troiano later said, she hugged her son as he sat in handcuffs and shackles. Troiano walked back into the courtroom, burying her head in deep sobs into her husband Joey's arms for nearly two minutes. "I didn't want to let go," she told him.

Troiano declined to say what she and her son talked about, as requested by attorneys in the case. She did say she was at once terrified and elated to have the chance. At the end of their talk, she said, she told a court security staff member that he was going to have to pull her away from hugging her son.

Ryder entered his plea in juvenile court and under that court's rules admitted "involvement" to one of the four counts against him: solicitation to have his mother killed. Stamm scheduled sentencing for Nov. 27. Because Ryder will serve his time in the state's juvenile system, he must be released by his 21st birthday. He could get out sooner.

He is the son of Troiano and her first husband. She married Joey Troiano when Ryder was in kindergarten, and he has helped raise the boy since.

The Troianos, who have two younger daughters, have faced a staggering array of emotions since June 2. That afternoon, the mother of one of their son's friends knocked on the door. The visitor told them she had heard their son, then 16, say he wanted them killed.

The police were called, and a detective told the Troianos he wanted to set up a sting. Ryder was lured that night to a room at the Days Inn in Lexington Park. He spoke with an undercover officer and made a "formal agreement" to have the man kill his mother and his stepfather, according to authorities. As payment, he offered his stepfather's pickup.

St. Mary's prosecutors wanted to try Ryder as an adult and send him to the adult prison system. The Troianos agreed. But Ryder's attorney got the case moved to juvenile court.

In an interview yesterday, Troiano said that she was relieved to not have to go through the trial but that part of her wanted to hear her son testify. She said she still has no idea why he said what he said in the hotel room.

Detectives have said Ryder was upset about discipline issues at home. The Troianos took a series of steps over many years to try to reverse their son's poor performance at school, including grounding him for weeks at a time and removing so many things from his room that, according to Shannan Troiano, at one point he was left with nothing but a bed and a dresser. Ryder told Juvenile Services officials he was upset that his parents kicked him out of their house last spring.

"If there's any chance of us becoming a family again," Shannan Troiano said, "it's going to be years" down the road.

When asked by authorities at the courthouse yesterday morning if she wanted to speak to her son, she had to decide whether to answer the question as a victim or a mother. She chose the latter. "I don't want him to think the whole world is against him," she said, adding that the plea was her son's first step in admitting what he had done.