Police are not saying much about who beat 16-year-old Preston Lord and left his battered body on the side of a suburban street.
Students at high schools in Gilbert, Queen Creek and San Tan Valley say they know who killed him. Their parents say they know why: Lord’s murder was tied to a gang of serial assaulters.
They say he was the latest victim in a string of vicious, blitz-style attacks by a group of affluent teenagers known as the “Gilbert Goons,” who cow their targets into silence with threats and intimidation.
The “Goonies,” as they sometimes call themselves, have for more than a year carried out random assaults on teenagers in mall parking lots, outside fast-food restaurants, at parks and at house parties, according to interviews, court and police records and social media posts.
Their attacks have become increasingly violent. They hit teens, kick them and beat them with brass knuckles, and they put at least one boy in the hospital last year with a cracked skull, records show.