"Hey, that's the kid who killed his dad."
It got to be so bad, the whispers and wide-eyed stares, that the dark-haired youth isolated behind thick glass walls made a sign for all to see."Juvenile on Display," it declared.
That was in May. The sign is gone now, but Jeremy Broadhead hasn't shaken the feeling of being the resident freak of the Youth Services Center.
To others, he is forever the Meridian eighth-grader who gunned down his dad. A 14-year-old convicted killer who never publicly said he was sorry.
"I'm really infamous," Jeremy, now 16, said with a humorless laugh.
Locked inside a high-security "cottage" at the St. Anthony center for young criminals, Jeremy remains the only teen in Idaho history to be sentenced to the custody of the Department of Corrections only to be deemed too young for prison.
He waits for a dreaded transfer to adult prison, nervously scratching days off a wall calendar.
With that trip less than 16 months away, Jeremy is encouraged to pump iron to add muscle to his slender, 5-foot, 11-inch frame.
There's only one goal, although it is rarely spoken: prison survival.
In interviews with The Statesman, he told his side of the story for the first time.
"I thought I was solving a problem," he said. "And I didn't have anybody to turn to."
Until three weeks after his 14th birthday, Jeremy might have been the envy of his peers. He lived in a sprawling home, complete with horse stable, near Meridian. His divorced father, John Steven Broadhead, was a successful, respected Boise businessman.
Nobody knew that beneath the surface long-suppressed anger was building.
On Feb. 23, 1989, 42-year-old John Steven Broadhead returned home, ending a long day at the office.
Jeremy watched the car enter the driveway from inside the house. When the back door swung open, he took aim with a high-powered hunting rifle.
He shot his father in the neck, chest, abdomen, back and right wrist. He dragged the body into a bedroom. Then he took his father's pickup and went cruising with friends.
"The facts were unrebutted," said Deputy Attorney General Michael Kane, who prosecuted Jeremy. "He lay in wait for his father and killed him. No one could come up with a good reason for why he did what he did."
After pleading guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder, Jeremy was sentenced to 15 years to life behind bars.
"It was building up in me for a long time," he now says of his anger toward his father.
"My mom and dad got divorced when I was 7. I never had a good relationship with my dad. I tried to do a lot of stuff to prove to him that I was good, but it wasn't good enough. He didn't show a lot of love."
To illustrate the point, Jeremy notes that he was an undefeated wrestler the year of the shooting. His dad attended every match. But afterward, each victory would be criticized, the teen said.
"When I won, it wasn't fast enough or good enough."
His father has been described by friends as stern but caring. But Jeremy says there was little love.
"Now I can look back and think how stupid and idiotic I was. I think, Why? Why couldn't I have talked to somebody?"
Jeremy's mother, Judy Estep of Pocatello, said she shoulders part of the blame.
After allowing her youngest son to live with his father, she said Jeremy gave signs that all was not well. A major clue: the theft of his dad's truck shortly before the killing.
"It's not that Jeremy didn't give us lots of warnings that something was really wrong with him," she said. "These kids who commit crimes, they do sound out warnings. Jeremy wasn't just crying out, he was screaming for help. And no one heard him."
For the past two years, Jeremy has been slowly coming of age inside a white cinderblock building.
He spends mornings being tutored one-on-one across a folding table.
When not in "school," Jeremy listens to heavy metal music on a portable CD player (a gift from his mother), watches TV or devours books.
His new life is one of loneliness, brightened by weekend visits by his mother and older brother, Brandon, 22, and controlled interaction with hand-picked delinquents from the institute.
Staff psychologist Murray Doggett gives Jeremy high marks.
"I don't have concerns about him emotionally now. I've seen good progress," Doggett said. "I tell people: `He's a nice kid, too bad he killed his dad.' But he's helpless to change the past."
Or avoid the future. Twice Jeremy and his Boise lawyer have appealed, and twice the Idaho Supreme Court has dashed hopes of a reduced sentence.
So he focuses instead on earning a high school diploma. And he dreams of studying psychology at BSU, perhaps one day helping others divulge dark secrets.
Does Jeremy miss his father?
"How couldn't you? A lot of people say I've never shown any remorse or I'm really cold about it. I miss seeing him and doing things with my dad. It's kind of hard sometimes."
He urges other parents to "be totally honest" and "look for the positives" in dealing with kids.
But most of all, he wants the outside world to know this: he doesn't feel like a killer.
"I think I could go out and be a regular kid and be all right. The thing is, I've learned."