James Morgan appears to have been a Catholic youth in the wrong place at the wrong time and became another victim of what is the Northern Ireland version of a neighbourhood murder. He was hitching a lift from the Co Down seaside resort, Newcastle, to his home in the village of Annsborough on Thursday evening, in the hours of daylight when he is believed to have encountered his killers.
The area of south Down comprises a series of tight-knit communities with an unusual degree of sectarian hatreds.
James was a familiar figure around Castlewellan, where he attended St Malachy's High School, a large co-educational Catholic school with almost 1,000 pupils. He had taken GCSE exams in June and would have received his results in mid-August.
During the summer he had knocked around Castlewellan and Newcastle doing part-time work or spending time with friends. When he disappeared on Thursday night it was assumed he was with one of his Catholic friends and would return on Friday.
However, late on Thursday night a Protestant farmer with land on the outskirts of Clough, reported a disturbance near a sinkhole on his property. Clough is a small village on the main Bel- fast-to-Newcastle road which is bedecked with loyalist bunting and Union flags and has its pavements painted red, white and blue.
It is a tiny loyalist enclave in a largely nationalist area.
Clough is only three miles from the mainly Catholic village where the Morgans live and which has a few Tricolours flying from lampposts.
Later again, the RUC is understood to have received a call from someone telling them a boy called Morgan was dead.
On Friday, a search of the land and the water-filled hole, which local people say has been used to dispose of animal carcasses, began. The RUC brought in its under-water unit on Saturday. On Sunday morning James's body was recovered and identified.
It is believed James was subjected to a severe beating before his death. The murder is the second sectarian murder of a Catholic youth by loyalists this month. On July 15th a lone loyalist gunman shot dead 18-year-old Bernadette Martin in the home of her Protestant boyfriend in the village of Aghalee, Co Antrim.
The motive in both cases was simply sectarian. Both James Morgan and Bernadette Martin had no known involvement in republican paramilitary activity or even nationalist political life.
Both were the victims of random sectarian violence that is still a part of life in the North despite the paramilitary ceasefires.
Yesterday, the Morgan family said they believed the only motive in James's murder was sectarianism. He had, they said, never made any enemies. James's mother, Mrs Philomena Morgan, said her son was last seen around 7 p.m. on the road to Castlewellan, when he was abducted.
She, her husband and their five children were completely devastated. James, she said, was a happy-go-lucky boy. He enjoyed fishing and was whiling away time fishing and doing part-time jobs, as he waited for his GCSE results.
His father, Mr Justin Morgan, said he believed the murder was sectarian. "Our family is not politically involved. We all went to mixed schools with Protestant neighbours. This is a great place to live and James had Protestant friends.
"There is no hatred in this house and in most of the people in Northern Ireland. There are head cases out there. The mothers and fathers of the people that have done this must be feeling this as well. Nothing makes sense any more."
The vice-principal of James's school and local SDLP Councillor, Mr Eamonn O'Neill, said: "The Morgans are highly respected in this area. They are known as hardworking people.
"Justin and Philomena are both from here and there is a wide family circle that is providing support for them. They want people to know how grateful they are of their support.
"The family have asked me to say on their behalf that if the evidence is that it is a sectarian case, that they do not want any retaliation or retribution. They want made clear."
Mr O'Neill said it appeared there might not have been any premeditation involved in the murder. "If it had been a Protestant boy who had picked up in that car, it might have changed the outcome."
The gentle rolling green countryside of south Down, dotted with linen mills and villages, belies the deep feelings held by some of its inhabitants and some past atrocities.
The scene of the murder is only three miles from the hamlet of Loughinisland where three UVF gunmen opened fire on customers in a Catholic pub in June 1994, killing six men.