MURDER VICTIM'S MOM SPEAKS TO STUDENTS

Darlene Tallman urges Shea pupils to consider choices, help make difference.

Almost four years after her son Eric was beaten to death in a
drug-trafficking scheme gone bad, Darlene Tallman still makes his
favorite food, macaroni and cheese with stewed tomatoes, on his birthday.

She still wears his earring and sleeps in a quilt made of his old
clothes. She's kept every newspaper article written about her son,
about his killers, about his death.

Friday, the pictures, quilt and articles were displayed in the
auditorium at Shea Middle School in Syracuse as Tallman told some 80
eighth-graders about her son's death.

"Please pay attention to my words," said Tallman, an English teacher
at Shea. "I'm paying the ultimate price and my husband is paying the
ultimate price."

She asked pupils to consider that the choices they make can affect
others for a long time.

Her son, Eric Tallman, 24, was beaten to death Nov. 27, 2002, over a
drug deal and was mauled by a pit bull at a mobile home in Dryden.
Authorities said his killers thought Tallman had stolen 50 pounds of
marijuana from a smuggling scheme to bring the drug from Texas to
Central New York.

Three people were convicted in Eric Tallman's death.

"How did this happen?" Tallman asked the pupils.

Tallman told the pupils her son started having problems in middle
school. He hung out with a "bad crowd." At 16, he was arrested for
stealing a car stereo, she said.

"I watch a lot, I listen a lot and I know many of you have the same
kind of pain inside of you," said Tallman, who lives in Cayuga County.

In a neighborhood plagued with drugs and violence, Tall-man said she
wanted to give Shea pupils a different perspective.

She asked the pupils to return to their communities during spring
break and find a way to make a difference.

Several pupils said they were moved by Tallman's story.

Demetria Boatwright, 14, said she would remember that the wrong
choices can deeply affect the lives of others.

"He was making the wrong choices and just not thinking about how it
would affect his family," she said.