2 Teens Charged in Case of Body Left at Loudoun School

Two teenagers panicked one night in June when their friend passed out after drinking too much hard liquor and died, so they took his body to a Loudoun County elementary school parking lot and left it there, authorities said yesterday.

The teenagers, 16 and 17, have been charged with concealing the body of 19-year-old Peter Johannes Cathcart Vold, Loudoun sheriff's officials said. Ryan B. McNeill, 24, of Fairfax County has been charged with buying the teenagers alcohol.

The names of the teenagers, from Woodbridge and South Riding, have not been released because they are juveniles.

The night of June 17, which was the day after his birthday, Vold was drinking 150-proof rum with friends at a popular South Riding area teen hangout, a wooded area near a pond that is secluded from the roadway, according to authorities and Vold's father. After he passed out, he was driven to a house and left in the car, while others went inside, authorities said.

Later, Vold was found dead in the car, and rather than call for help, the two teenagers drove his body to Little River Elementary School, on Hyland Hills Street in South Riding, and left it in the parking lot. His body was found there about 2:20 a.m. the next day. The medical examiner ruled that Vold died of alcohol poisoning.

"It is tragic," Loudoun Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson said yesterday. "It's tragic that they felt they had no option at that point other than to leave him," rather than getting medical help.

Vold, originally from Cincinnati, dropped out of Freedom High School in April and had stayed in Loudoun to live with friends after his parents moved to Charleston, S.C., in May, his father, Havard Vold said yesterday. The teenagers were partying the night before Freedom High's graduation.

Vold's father, originally from Norway, said he was not angry at the teenagers who have been charged, saying that strict laws for underage drinking in the United States might have made his son's friends afraid to call authorities for help. The charge, concealment of a body, is a felony.

"The kids are scared of going to the authorities, of going to the police, for anything, because they are afraid of the consequences," said Havard Vold, 60, a mathematician. ". . . I'm not blaming the police. I think I'm blaming the politicians and/or blaming society for thinking that passing laws is going to cure innate problems in society."

Peter Vold loved fishing and drawing cartoons, and he was interested in history and politics, his father said. He was considering careers in marine biology and political science, and he planned to take the high school equivalency exam in July, his father said.

After spending most of his life in Cincinnati, Vold moved to Germany with his family in 2002 and then to Loudoun in 2004.

His body was buried on the coast of Norway, near his father's home town of Voll.

Staff writer Tom Jackman and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.