Have mercy?

Last Saturday night, David Erhardt walked into the restaurant where his father, Thomas, had worked to pick up a cheese-and-pepperoni pizza, presumably for himself and his ailing father.

"He was acting weird," said Mike Storm, owner of Kensington Avenue Pizzeria and Restaurant. "He was jittery and antsy. The pizza wasn't ready, and he said, "Where's my pizza? Where's my pizza?' He was real anxious to get out of here."

Co-workers were so concerned about Thomas Erhardt, their "Grampa," who was ill with cancer, that one wrote on the pizza box, "Get well, Grampa."

Two days later, the restaurant workers found out why David Erhardt had seemed so antsy.

Thomas Erhardt, a 57-year-old Vietnam veteran, had been beaten to death with a hammer on Jan. 8 - three weeks earlier.

Law enforcement officials now have a confession from David Erhardt, who claimed he acted out of concern for his ailing father after they had received an eviction notice for their Kensington Village apartment.

Fellow workers and regular patrons at the Kensington Avenue restaurant, where Thomas Erhardt had done some electrical work and odd jobs for four years, weren't buying that this was a merciful act.

"When you brutally kill your father [with a hammer], where's the mercy in that?"