Jeremy's stepfather did not set an example likely to moderate Jeremy's behavior. He beat Jeffrey. He repeatedly abused Jeffrey's mother in front of the boy. In one scuffle, he broke her leg and smashed her in the head with a wine bottle breaking her nose.⁶ He kept several handguns in the house, including a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum stashed under the living room couch.⁷

Brad Hansen had been "grounded". He did not tell his mom that there was no school on Friday, November 10, 1995. Instead of attending class, he planned on hanging out at Jeremy's house. When Brad's mother discovered there was no school, she immediately attempted to contact her son from work. Unable to reach him, she left work early. When she got home, she called the Bach residence. Jeremy told her that her son had been there earlier in the day but left.⁸

Brad had arrived at the Bach residence around 6:45 am. He never left the Bach residence alive. Brad and Jeremy watched TV and listened to music for about 20 minutes. Then words were exchanged about a girl schoolmate. An altercation broke out in which Jeremy shot Hansen with the pistol that had been hidden under the living room couch. ⁹ Jeffrey would later confess to the shooting and tell police that after Brad was shot, "his heart pieces were coming out of his chest".¹⁰

The wound was not immediately fatal. It took nearly two hours for Brad to die.¹¹ As his classmate lay dying on the kitchen floor, Jeremy did not call 911. Instead, he turned on his music, put out the cigarettes he and Brad had been smoking, threw the shell case in the trash and tidied up. When Brad finally stopped breathing Jeremy put his body in the in the trash.¹²

The trash container Jeremy used was the large barrel on wheels which the city provides for residents roll to the curb for pick up on trash days. Later, the medical examiner described the container as having almost 2 inches of blood and body fluid at the bottom, a quantity consistent with "a serious injury and incompatible with life."¹³

The teenage girl in the love triangle visited Jeremy only hours after the murder. The three had originally planned as a day of hanging out and having fun. She was surprised that Hansen wasn't there and even went through the house looking for him, thinking that Bach was joking when she told her that Hansen had left. She saw Hansen's pager and hat in the living room, a spent bullet shell in the trash and drops of blood in the kitchen as well as stains on the tile floor in the kitchen directly under a hole in the wall. Jeremy explained that the two foot square stain on the kitchen floor as coming from a ketchup spill.¹⁴

Jeremy forgot to put the trash container out for the next pickup, so Brad's body stayed in the trash container at the Bach house for 10 days. When it was picked up, it was never to be found in spite of a $100,000 search of the landfill where the trash was deposited.