Boy Soldiers: The Inside Story of the Two Ex-Public Schoolboys Who Killed for Kicks

by Aaron Hicklin

This is the true story of the murder of a stranger carried out by two friends, Richard Elsey and Jamie Petrolini. This book investigates their childhood and background, and describes how their initially harmless fantasies progressed from light-hearted dares to a powerful compulsion to murder.

192 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1995

About the author

Aaron Hicklin is the editor-in-chief of Out, the United States' largest gay men's magazine. He is also editorial director of LPI Media, a division of Regent Media that includes The Advocate. Previously, he was editor of BlackBook magazine. He began his tenure as editor-in-chief of Out in April 2006. Before this he also had a column in the Scottish newspaper, The Sunday Herald, in which he wrote articles about life in New York. He is the author of Boy Soldiers (Mainstream), and the editor of The Revolution Will Be Accessorized (Harper Perennial), an anthology of essays that appeared in BlackBook.

Hicklin was responsible for a controversial cover of Out in May 2007 on which two models held masks of Anderson Cooper and Jodie Foster in front of their faces above the words "The Glass Closet". The cover referenced persistent rumors claiming that they are homosexual, but refuse to come out as such.