Alec Kreider was visibly distraught after the murder of his friend, Kevin Haines, last month.

The quiet, smart 16-year-old cried on the bus the next school day. He cried in class.

What his classmates who comforted him and even his own family did not know at the time was Kreider allegedly is the one who stabbed to death his friend and his friend's parents, Tom and Lisa, in their Blossom Hill home, early one Saturday morning in May.

What they also do not know today - and what law enforcement officials are not revealing - is why Kreider allegedly killed the family.

That question is the one that everyone wants to have answered.

"What would possess a child to do this?" asked Andrea Fogelberg, who lives across the street from the Haines' home on Peach Lane.

Lancaster County District Attorney Donald Totaro refused to answer any questions today about Kreider's possible motive or provide any additional details about the murder, the murder weapon or whether investigators were closing in on Kreider before his alleged confession to his father last week, which led to Kreider's arrest.

"This is an ongoing investigation," Totaro said in an e-mail, "and there are many additional interviews to be conducted."

Totaro also said a search warrant for the Haines house will not be unsealed, despite the fact that police have made the arrest and believe Kreider is the only person responsible for the killings.

A judge sealed the search warrant in May "upon the showing of good cause" in the case, Totaro said.

"There are still a number of interviews to be conducted, and we do not want these interviews to be tainted by the public release of sensitive information contained within the search warrant affidavit," Totaro said in the e-mail.

The warrant was sealed for 60 days and will be available to the public when that time passes, Totaro said. That would be about mid-July.

Totaro also said physical evidence that has been recovered in the case is being analyzed by the state police crime laboratory.

More information will be available as the case proceeds through the court system, Totaro said.

The Haines family members were stabbed in their home early May 12. Their daughter, Maggie, a 20-year-old college student, heard a struggle at about 2:20 a.m. and ran into her parents' bedroom.

Her mother told her to go get help. By the time police arrived, both of her parents and her brother were dead - her mother stabbed in the abdomen, her father stabbed in the chest and her brother stabbed in the neck and chest, according to Kreider's arrest warrant affidavit.

The affidavit stated that Kreider told his father he had gone into the house "with the intent to smother Kevin Haines" but instead of smothering him used a knife to kill him and his parents.

Two days after the murders, as Kreider rode the school bus home with his classmates on Monday, May 14, he was very upset, one teen said in an interview today.

Alexa Priester, 16, sat down next to Kreider and tried to console the teen, who was reading a letter from the Manheim Township High School principal about how to handle things in the wake of the murders.

"Alec was reading it on the bus, and he was crying," she said. "I got up, walked over and sat next to him and said, 'I know you were really close friends with Kevin. I'm really sorry he's gone. If you ever need anything, you can talk to me.' "

She held Kreider's hands.

"Thank you," he responded.

"Now let me just see you smile," Priester said.

"No, I can't," Kreider said.

Finally, after some convincing, Kreider smiled as the girl gave him a hug.

Kreider also was upset during school, which he attended until the end of the school year.

"He was really sad," said Yiting Tian, 15, who was in classes with Kreider. "He cried a bit during one of my classes."

Kreider even went to the memorial service for the Haines family on May 19, held at Otterbein United Methodist Church on East Clay Street, where Tom and Lisa Haines were married 22 years earlier.

Kreider was among hundreds of mourners, including dozens from Manheim Township High School and Kevin's Boy Scout troop.

Some of Kreider's friends today simply could not fathom that he was responsible for the murders.

Tian was so shocked at the news of Kreider's arrest that even though he allegedly confessed, she does not believe he is responsible.

"A lot of people don't believe he actually did it," she said. "We are all waiting for the evidence to come out before we believe anything."

"He was so close to Kevin, we didn't believe he could do it," she added.

Kreider split his time between the homes of his parents, who are divorced. He has a sister, who is about three years older than him, and a brother, who is about three years younger.

His mother, Angela, 40, a self-employed newspaper delivery person, lives at 1264 Cobblestone Lane, about a half-mile north of the Haines' home.

His father, Timothy, 39, a mortgage broker, lives at 443 Dolly Drive in Bloomingdale, across the Lititz Pike and south of Blossom Hill.

Neither parent returned calls for comment this morning. Their attorney, Robert D. Beyer, said they would have no statement.

Kreider's fellow students described him as a smart kid who was in advanced-placement classes and very knowledgeable about politics. One student said he was on the school's rifle team at some point.

Kreider appeared quiet and somewhat detached and unapproachable, but was very friendly and funny once you got to know him, they said.

"A lot of people like him," Tian said.

The only activity he participated in, according to a listing in the high school yearbook, was the school's silent reading club.

David Wolgemuth, 16, attended school with both Haines and Kreider.

Wolgemuth said he had several classes with Kreider, and knew him since the third grade, but never suspected he might be capable of murder.

"He was the quiet type," Wolgemuth said. "He wasn't mean, but he didn't seem like the murderer type."

Manheim Township School Superintendent Kevin Singer did not return several calls for comment today.

He previously said that the murders and arrest were "just about the worst things that could possibly happen. We have two families directly affected by this tragedy, not to mention everyone else who knows these students."

Kreider's defense attorney, John A. Kenneff, declined to comment this morning.

"I think you have the basic biographical information I have. To go beyond that at this point would be premature," Kenneff said.

n CONTACT US: cstauffer@LNPnews.com or 481-6024; tmurse@LNPnews.com or 481-6021