Mom Vows To Help Local Kids After Teen Daughter Shot To Death Inside Military Bunker

HELENDALE (CBS) — It's been nearly four years since 16-year-old Bodhi Sherzer-Potter and her boyfriend Cody Thompson were shot to death inside an abandoned military bunker on a rainy desert night.

Bodhi's mother, Leah Sherzer had moved with her daughter in 1998 to the Helendale community of Silver Lakes, just west of Barstow off Route 66. A then 10-year-old Bodhi helped her mother draw up the blueprints for their new home, an oasis in the desert. Six years later, Sherzer would learn of her daughter's death after a mystery phone call.

Bodhi was a gifted child, who had started college at the age of 16. But like other teens in the desolate community, with little to do in the way of extracurricular activities, Bodhi was bored.

"Bodhi would come home and say 'there's got to be life beyond homework and school,'" says Sherzer. And she wanted to find out where it was.

With few places to hang out, local teens had created a party spot in an abandoned military bunker. The mysterious haunt attracted teens for years, as it fell outside the reach of parental supervision.

When Bodhi showed her new-found haven to her mother, Sherzer says, "My heart sunk. I said you are absolutely forbidden to come here."

'To her it was a fortress," says Sherzer. "It was a great find. It was exciting."

On a January night in 2008, Bodhi and Thompson attended a party with friends in the bunker. Afterwards, the couple decided to spend the night in their car.

That's when investigators say three teens who attended the party planned an armed robbery. Bodhi and Thompson were reportedly awakened and ordered out of the car.

The couple was later shot and killed inside the bunker.

Sherzer believed Bodhi was with her brother in Newport Beach, and became alarmed when she didn't receive her morning phone call.

By 10 a.m., Sherzer had contacted the police.

"5 p.m. a girl calls me," says Sherzer. "Still to this day, I don't know who, but that's when I knew my daughter was dead."

The mystery caller told Sherzer her daughter was last seen at the bunker.

"You're hoping that they kidnapped her," says Sherzer. "You're hoping she got away. She's wounded somewhere. You're hoping the thing you know for a fact isn't true."

Today the bunker where Bodhi and her boyfriend were murdered stands in ruins. Shortly after the killings, Sherzer collected 3,800 signatures on a petition to have the bunker destroyed.

And her fight did not end there.

Sherzer is working to establish a teen center in Helendale. "I should have done that when she was alive," says Sherzer. "I really want it to be the way Bodhi would have seen it. It's got to have a lot of hands off, but with guidance and mentorship."

Sherzer says the center will be a place where teens have freedom, but can still be safe. She says it's one last project shared between a mother and daughter.

As for Bodhi and Thompson's alleged murderers, they have yet to be brought to justice.

Attorneys for Collin McGlaughlin, who is believed to have masterminded the murders, argued that the 21-year-old suffers from schizophrenia. But last month a judge ruled McGlaughlin is competent to stand trial.

The soonest the murder trial may begin is next spring.