The College Drug Ring Murder

0:07He's scared, he's 20 years old and he's facing the death penalty. They were college students in a quiet town. This is suburbia, rich kids. Then, one of them, the son of a retired Secret Service agent, was shot dead. This was really an execution. It opened a window to a dark world. None of these parents, they never would have known. And a secret network unraveled. I still drove for five years and didn't get any kind of trouble whatsoever. Kids from the best of families. Everybody had a future. They were all real, real smart. Peter Van Sant investigates, dealing drugs worth millions. What's the most amount of cash you ever had?

0:52Over a hundred something. For a hundred thousand dollars? Yeah. It makes you a movie star in a small town. Did life in the fast lane drive Justin to murder? And that's what drives these kids. It's the money and it's the lifestyle that comes along with it. I can't even believe what's happened to me. A special 48 hours mystery. Isn't it time you confessed to this crime? The Millionaire Boys Club.

1:26I'm Leslie Stahl. Tonight we bring you a morality tale about the appearance of good and the reality of evil. We take you to a place where young people grow up with the best of everything and parents believe they can trust their children. Imagine their shock finding out that their kids in college were selling millions of dollars in drugs right under their noses. As Peter Van Sant reports, these kids had everyone fooled until one of them ended up dead.

2:02It was a really nice neighborhood. Quiet, everybody knows everybody. Just a nice neighborhood. Growing up in the suburbs around Manassas, Virginia... All of these kids come from good homes, good families. Life... They live in huge houses. His parents have nice cars, great jobs. Was easy. I mean, all the kids here have money. And in these quiet, affluent communities, street crimes seemed a world away. I mean, nothing like this ever happened before. Until late one night in the spring of 2001, when 21-year-old Danny Petrolli, the son of a retired Secret Service agent, was brutally gunned down.

3:03This was really an execution. It was a bloody scene. It was a gruesome scene. The scene stunned even veteran prosecutors Paul Ebert. I mean, that gun was fired time and time again into that young man's body. And Rick Conway. This is a semi-automatic pistol. The bullet only comes out when you squeeze the trigger. Danny was shot nine times as he sat in his car just outside his townhouse. You didn't hear about shootings and people getting shot in our neighborhoods. Justin Wolf was 19 at the time, a college student like Danny. He was a good guy. Everybody liked Danny. I don't think he had any enemies.

3:47I didn't know anybody didn't like him. I was shocked. It was sad. I couldn't believe it. Jennifer Pascarello. This is where Regina lived. And Regina Zuner. Everyone's lives have changed so dramatically. Both went to high school with Justin and to middle school with Danny. Danny was an extraordinary person. He was a magnet. People were drawn to him. Within days of Danny's shooting, police traced the murder weapon to a suspect. We were pretty sure that we had our man with Owen Barber. Owen Barber, a 21-year-old who, like Danny, grew up in a comfortable neighborhood near Manassas. It's sad because I can picture, like, everything the way it used to be.

4:34Jennifer Pascarello was Owen's girlfriend. This is the very first day we met. They'd been dating since Jennifer was 14. He came to pick me up. I'd never even been on a date before, so he was my first ever. Tell me about the home that Owen grew up in. His parents were real close. They were like a normal family, I guess. Mom and Dad, he's the only child, and he did the chores around the house for them whenever and came home for dinner every night. That's Owen's house right there. I felt sorry for the kid. Justin became friends with Owen in high school. Owen didn't do anything. A lot of us played basketball and stuff like that, but he was just, I don't know.

5:14He just was one of those guys that hung around, I guess. He doesn't look like a person who could be a killer in any of these pictures. I never, ever, ever in my wildest dreams would have imagined that he was capable of something like this. But nearly a year after Danny's murder, Owen Barber is in court to confess he pulled the trigger. And what did you do then? I jumped out, went around the front of my car, and as I went towards his car, he reached across and then I shot him through the passenger window. You see any sign of life after you shot him? No. You can't listen to Owen Barber talk about committing this murder without just being overwhelmed by his callousness.

6:02But the defendant on trial isn't Owen Barber. Would you identify him for the record? He's right there. It's Justin Wolf and Owen is here to testify against his former friend. It's like we gotta shoot him. Owen Barber would never have killed Danny Petrolli unless Justin Wolf wanted him to. Prosecutors set out to prove that Justin Wolf is a killer. Justin Wolf hired Owen Barber to murder Danny Petrolli. Who deserves the death penalty. I think Wolf is so much more dangerous than Barber. Barber was no more than a tool. Crazy. I don't know. It's crazy. Did you hire Owen Barber to kill Danny Petrolli?

6:52No, I did not. I've never hurt anybody a day in my life. I feel like a little kid in there. He's frightened. He's scared. He's 20 years old and he's facing the death penalty. Justin's mother, Terry Steinberg, insists her son is incapable of any violence. Justin did not do anything to hurt Danny Petrolli. And I will go to my grave with that. This was a horrific crime, a heinous crime. It was cruel. It was evil. But that was what Owen did. That's not what Justin did. That was Christmas Eve. For Danny Petrolli's parents... Danny was the fun, joy person in our life. He always was funny. He was always laughing.

7:41The trial is a reminder of their loss. There wasn't a conversation that didn't end with, you know, love you, Dad, love you too, buddy. Danny's father worked on the presidential detail of the Secret Service. Do you look at the patroles in court? Sometimes. Is there anything you'd want to say to them? I didn't have anything to do with their son's death. He was my friend. They weren't friends per se. They met with the sole purpose of dealing drugs. Each bag is approximately a pound. Sergeant Greg Pass started work on the Petrolli case the morning after Danny's murder. Inside Danny's garage, we found 47 pounds of high-grade marijuana.

8:24And it wasn't long before police discovered... Justin was one of Danny's customers. That Danny Petrolli and Justin Wolf were drug dealers. Unfortunately, Justin decided he wanted to get greedy and ended up having Danny killed. I made some mistakes with the drugs, you know, that involvement in the drugs, but not the murderer they say I am. But the investigation that brought Justin to trial... This was a case that involved more than just one drug dealer killing another.

8:59uncovered a secret life of drugs, sex, and greed. And that's what drives these kids. It's the money. That even the most sheltered teenagers fell victim to. You gotta get at the root of every problem. The root of the problem was the drugs of all of us.

9:36That's his letter for football. This was his security thing from the time he was a baby. And this was what he wore with his tux. According to his mother, Terry Steinberg, He's a good loving brother and a good loving son. 20-year-old Justin Wolf grew up a typical suburban teenager in Northern Virginia. He was your, you know, all-American kid. Very good basketball player, very good football player. He was always making friends. Everybody loved him. When I was in high school, I knew more than half the school. And Justin claims, for many high school students here, smoking marijuana was no big deal.

10:17It's not viewed as the other drugs are, you know. It's like drugs and marijuana. How old were you when you smoked your first joint? Eighth grade. The first time I ever smoked marijuana, I was 15. Both Regina Zuner and Jennifer Pascarello Smoking weed, a lot of people make friends in high school that way. Became friends with Justin in high school. You want to be like everybody else or haven't done it and you want to try it. You know, get sucked in, peer pressure. From your smartest jock to everyday average student, everyone smoked. But they weren't smoking the kind of pot their parents' generation did.

11:00There's two different types of marijuana. You have low-grade and high-grade. Chronic is high-grade marijuana. They were smoking chronic. Well, you can see you have a lot of buds. There's not too many stems. Schwag marijuana, there's a lot of stems and seeds. Sergeant Greg Pass worked in narcotics. Schwag is low-grade marijuana. That's pretty much what everybody's used to seeing on the streets. But the marijuana of choice for many kids today is chronic. Chronic tastes better. You get higher. You're just mellow, relaxed. It has a higher THC content. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana, so it's more potent.

11:35The problem is it's going to cost them a lot more for it.

11:41Chronic costs up to five times more than Shway. It runs$350 an ounce. That's normally how it's sold on the street. But for the teenagers here... That was basically all anybody was getting. Cost was never a problem. And this is suburbia. It's rich kids. And for Justin... You start off kind of supporting your habit. The high street value was a reason to start dealing chronic. So you smoke for free and then you're like, I can make money doing this. If you're selling it by the pound, then you're looking at anywhere between$3 ,300, the lowest you can get it, up to$5 ,000. How old were you when you first dealt it, when you first sold marijuana?

12:23By ninth grade. He started out selling a few ounces of schwag, but by graduation... The more money you make, the more you can get. Justin was dealing multiple pounds of chronic. That was kind of like a work thing, like a business thing for me. A business that boomed when he met 21-year-old Danny Petrolli. Danny controlled all the chronic coming into the area. And Justin became one of his distributors. Tell me about the money you made selling drugs. I don't know. I made a lot of money. Only 19 and a part-time college student, Justin made up to$15 ,000 a month selling the chronic Danny supplied him.

13:06Makes you a superstar. It makes you a movie star in a small town. 28-year-old Jason Coleman hung out with Justin for years and managed this bar where all of Justin's friends party.

13:27You're nobody and then in the blink of an eye, you can have whatever you want. And that's what drives these kids. It's the money. It's the lifestyle that comes along with it. It was a never-ending party. Everybody wanted to be Justin's friend. Because he had everything. He always knew what was going on. All the girls liked him. Oh, the girls. There's lots of women around. We always had girls around us, yeah. Part of the lifestyle. Yes. One of the benefits. Yes, definitely one of the benefits. The benefits of having lots of cash. I blew money, basically. I'd run through money like there's nothing.

14:06How much money would be dropped on a typical weekend? A couple thousand dollars. A couple thousand dollars? Yeah. We partied lavishly. Only the best vodka, only the best anything. Best champagne, bottles of Moet and Cristal and just the most expensive everything. The bartenders know you guys? Everywhere. And did they know you were underage? Yes. If you have money, you can do whatever you want to. You gotta go to the root of every problem. The root of the problem was the drugs with all of us. As much as I tried, I didn't know that he was doing that. Terry, a nurse, raised Justin as a single mother.

14:52And I feel somewhat responsible for not having caught on to that as his mom. She really didn't see, like, all the partying and all the money he was spending. What was the most amount of cash you ever had? I don't know. Over a hundred, something. Over a hundred thousand dollars? Yeah. Where did you put it? Not in my room. I wouldn't keep anything in my room. I checked his room on a regular basis. I would go through his things. I would smell his clothes. But there was never any drugs. I suspected my mother would look through there, but I mean, I had spots. He was too careful to let her find out.

15:30None of these parents, they never would have imagined. They never would have known. And neither would police. I still drugs for five years and didn't get any kind of trouble whatsoever. until Danny Petroli was murdered. We had to figure out who was Danny Petroli. And the investigation that followed... We were definitely taken aback by it. ...uncovered a drug ring worth millions and millions of dollars. It was amazing. An enterprise created and controlled by... It goes down the line pretty far. ...suburban college students. That's next.

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17:30I think Owen's a good guy. He never really got into a fight with anybody. Danny was a really nice guy. He was a lot of fun. Justin could go out of his way to help someone that he barely knows. Everybody had a future. They were all real, real smart.

18:00We were not the typical drug dealers. We were selling weed between friends, you know. No one here in Manassas, Virginia, ever expected that dealing pot... It was definitely harmless, I thought. ...would end in murder. And then I shot him through the passenger window. Until Danny Petrolli was gunned down in the spring of 2001. On the day Danny Petrolli was murdered, Justin Wolfe had set up a drug deal with Danny Petrolli. And now, Justin Wolfe is on trial for capital murder. You know, I sold marijuana, which was wrong, but I had nothing to do with this murder. Key to the prosecution's case against Justin is his one-time friend, Owen Barber.

18:47He asked me if I wanted to get his chronic man. Get the chronic man? Yeah. He was like, we've got to shoot him. Owen claims Justin hired him to kill Danny. Did I tell you why he wanted you to shoot him? so he wouldn't have to pay that money back. A drug debt that prosecutors Paul Ebert and Rick Conway argue gave Justin motive. He just did not like to pay his debts. He liked to have money coming in, not going out. Justin owed Danny almost$70 ,000 for the high-grade marijuana called chronic that Danny was supplying him. This is all the high-grade marijuana that was found the morning after he was killed.

19:25Sergeant Greg Pass led the drug investigation after Danny's shooting. These people aren't killing you because you're selling dope. They're killing you because you have something they want, and that's money. Investigators discovered that Danny, the son of a retired Secret Service agent, had, at 21, become the head of one of the largest known drug rings in Northern Virginia. We were able to pin him down to about$4.5 million worth of drugs that he had sold. In what period of time? in the last couple years. At the time of his death, where did the drugs come from? Seattle, maybe. What's that? Seattle.

20:03Paul Gunning was Danny's roommate at the time of the murder. He introduced Danny to a chronic supplier in Seattle, Washington, nearly two years ago. And how much did he purchase on that occasion? 100 pounds. 100 pounds? Yes, sir. And what was the price for that? Like$360 ,000. Would it be fair to say that once a month he paid$360 ,000? Yes, sir. $360 ,000 worth of chronic that Danny distributed each month to the dealers on this list. This is an O-Sheet. O-O-W-E, as in I owe you money. This is Danny's O-Sheet. What, if anything, on the O-Sheet was significant in relation to this case? The initial is J-W.

20:47Okay. And how did you connect that? The suspect, Justin Wolf. Justin was one of Danny's customers. At a minimum, Justin Wolf owed him$66 ,325. That O-sheet was the most important piece of evidence to actually connect Justin Wolf to Danny Petroli. It was Justin Wolf who owed that money, not Owen Barber. But Owen had a drug debt of his own,$3 ,000 to Justin. Your final understanding between the two of you before you killed Danny Petroli, again with what? A$3 ,000 oil debt I didn't have to pay for, half pound of chronic, the four pounds of regular swag, and then$10 ,000 more. So for a total of about$20 ,000, the deal was struck, Owen says, to kill Danny Petrovic.

21:39On March 15, 2001, after a Danny to Justin Drugby, Owen began tailing down. I followed him on to 66 and he eventually got off. And then down 54 seconds, the Fairfax exit. I followed him on 66, going west, and then he got off at the Gainesville exit. At trial, prosecutors introduce these cell phone records from the night of the murder. And you made a phone call at that area? Yeah. Owen Barber testifies that he followed Danny for more than an hour. I called Justin and said that he went into some house in Fairfax City. Calling Justin to give him updates throughout the pursuit. At 10.23, I thought I lost him.

22:31The next one was that I found him.

22:39The last call that you made to Justin Wolf, can you highlight the time of that, sir? 11-12. Just minutes after Owen had shot Danny nine times. You've got just a flurry of telephone activity between the two of them, and particularly at the crucial moments immediately before and after the murder. Justin was the last person Owen called before he killed Danny and the first after the shooting. And then you do not see any more phone calls from Justin Wolf's phone to Owen Barber's phone. Within days of the murder. So I was like, all right, you know, I was like, I'm getting out of here. Owen left town, ending up in San Diego.

23:22He never called me back and he didn't keep a pistol under the bargain. Justin, he says, never paid him for shooting debt.

23:32I love him. I love him and I'm sad for him. Jennifer Pascarello, Owen's girlfriend, drove to San Diego to be with him. And I was just at a little hotel on the beach and my money was going lower and lower. I only had$700 left because he didn't have any money. Jennifer wrote a desperate letter to a friend of Justin's. Is this the beginning of the actual letter? Yeah. P.S.S. J.W. knows how important this money is. He'll know, I promise. Justin knows that Owen wants his money, basically, or else we aren't going to make it. We aren't going to survive. You wanted the$10 ,000 that had been promised for the murder.

24:12Yeah. But before Jennifer could mail that letter, authorities traced the murder weapon to Owen and tracked him down in San Diego. After his arrest, Owen confessed and implicated Justin. Is what you told us here today, the whole truth is nothing but the truth? Yes, sir. I don't see how they can believe Owen Barber. Why would Owen Barber be lying about you? Save his own life. Pointing fingers at me gets him off the death penalty. But if convicted, Justin faces the death penalty. I'd like to call Justin Wolf. And Justin's life... Yes, I do. ...may now be in his own hands. I mean, I might have to do some time on this drugs, but I had nothing to do with this murder.

24:57Justin's story next.

25:13College kids making millions selling pot. Keep in mind that we're talking about a marijuana known as chronic. It's many times more powerful than the drug smoked in the 60s and many times more expensive. Authorities say all that money led to greed and betrayal and eventually to murder, with one young drug lord ordering a hit on another. Here again is Peter Van Sant.