A New Jersey man who killed his mother and then stabbed an 11-year-old boy to death claimed that he was influenced by a METALLICA song about a boy who "lost my way this bloody day" when he committed the crime, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Ronald Pituch, 29, pleaded guilty two months ago to striking his mother, Josephine, in the head with a 20-pound barbell inside the Huntington Circle home they shared on Oct. 17, 2002, according to The Courier-Post.

He then left their home on his motorcycle and wandered into Kings Grant in neighboring Evesham, where he spotted 11-year-old Gregory Katsnelson riding his bike.

Pituch admitted grabbing the boy, stabbing him and putting his body in a pond. Pituch then drove to the Medford police department and turned himself in.

Pituch (Photo: Ronald - left, boy's mother - right) told the court during his sentencing Tuesday (Jan. 4) that he thought the METALLICA song "Ronnie" had been directed at him. The song tells of a boy who "never laughed, never smiled, talked alone for miles and miles and miles."

In the song, nothing happens in a quiet town until Ronnie pulls a gun, and the children "all fall down, down, down."

Family members said Pituch had stopped taking his medication in the days before the killings. An insanity defense had been planned for the trial.

Based on Pituch's statements to police after his arrest, Burlington County Prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi said he believed Pituch was sane.

"He understood the wrongfulness of what he had done," Bernardi said after yesterday's proceeding. "Our concern was that he not be able to do this to anyone again."

A day before the killings, Pituch called Nikki Roberts, an Evesham resident who years earlier was a classmate of his at Shawnee High School in Medford.

He became angry and asked whether she was a METALLICA fan.

"I don't know what all this [expletive] means," he told her. "I must be the son of Satan or something."

It was not Pituch's first call to Roberts, and he also had tried to visit her.

Pituch told the court yesterday that part of his delusion involved having Roberts as his "queen of paradise."

Roberts, who yesterday declined to discuss Pituch's statement, said in an interview a month after the killings that she could not understand why he had contacted her.

She wondered whether he would have killed her, too.

"I have so many questions," she said at the time, "but I really just want to know why. What did he want with me?"

Pituch's father, Thomas, did not attend the sentencing.

"It was just too tough for him," said Cedric Edwards, Pituch's attorney. "The man lost his wife, and now he has lost his son, too."

Pituch could have faced the death penalty because of Gregory Katsnelson's age.

He avoided potential execution by waiving his insanity defense and pleading guilty to murder and aggravated assault. In return, prosecutors eliminated the capital charge.

Pituch was sentenced to at least 45 1/2 years in prison.

In addition to his prison sentence, Pituch was ordered by Superior Court Judge Marvin Schlosser to pay more than $14,000 to the state's Victims of Crime Compensation Board.

Pituch is a paranoid schizophrenic who had been treated on and off since middle school, defense attorney Cedric Edwards said. Since his arrest, Pituch has fared well with medication, he added.

A statement Pituch read in court Tuesday gave insight into the mental problems from which he suffered.

"I believed I was possessed by the devil into thinking I was a god," said Pituch, reading softly from a crumpled piece of paper. "I know now that delusion is not true."