Jealousy of Popular Girl Blamed in Killing

ByABC News
February 2, 2005, 10:39 AM

Feb. 3, 2005 -- -- When Adrianne Reynolds, the pretty new girl in school, started getting too much attention from the boys, Sarah Kolb, another girl at the East Moline, Ill., school didn't like it and expressed her anger the way a lot of teens do, saying she wanted to kill her rival, classmates of the two said.

When Reynolds disappeared and a boy from the school led police to her burned and dismembered body, prosecutors charged Kolb with carrying through on her threats.

Kolb, 16, and Corey Gregory, 17, have both been charged with first-degree murder and concealment of a homicide in the death of Reynolds. Both pleaded not guilty Tuesday, and they were ordered held on $1 million bail. Their trials are scheduled for April 4.

The three were students in the Black Hawk College Outreach Center's GED program.

Rock Island County State's Attorney Jeff Terronez said a third teenager suspected of involvement in the case, a 16-year-old boy, is in juvenile custody but Terronez is considering charging him as an adult as well.

Investigators testifying Tuesday at the preliminary hearings said Kolb choked and beat Reynolds, while Gregory held her arms, then strangled her with a belt on Jan 21.

The pair then allegedly spent six hours trying to burn the body with gasoline at a farm in Mercer County but failed. They then enlisted the help of the third teen to saw off Reynolds' head and arms and cut her torso in half, investigators testified. Her legs had come off when the body partially burned, they said.

Police said Gregory led them to Reynolds' body on Jan. 25. Parts of the body were found in various locations around the Blackhawk State Historic Site in Rock Island and on Kolb's grandparents' farm.

Now, other students are trying to deal with the thought that three people they thought they knew might have done something so monstrous.

"They were my friends for years," Sean McKitrick, who was with Reynolds, Gregory and Kolb on the night the girl was killed, told ABC News affiliate WQAD-TV in East Moline. "I didn't think they were capable of such a thing."