A Lawrence teen tried to kill an acquaintance last week by luring the victim out of his apartment and hitting him in the head several times with a crowbar, prosecutors say.

The arrest early Wednesday of Barry L. Sterling, 19, came after a weeklong investigation into mysterious head injuries suffered by the victim, 20-year-old Travis D. Adams. Sterling is charged with one count of attempted first-degree murder and one count of aggravated kidnapping and is being held in lieu of $500,000 bond at the Douglas County Jail.

Adams’ mother awoke June 1 and found Adams covered with blood inside their apartment at Westgate Apartments, 4641 W. Sixth St. Adams is still in critical condition at a Kansas City-area hospital and doesn’t remember what happened, police said.

But detectives identified Sterling as a suspect by talking with anyone they could find who knows Adams.

Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney praised the Lawrence Police Department’s work.

“They did an excellent job starting with very little or no information,” she said.

Sterling and Adams are acquaintances and have argued in the past, said Sgt. Mike Pattrick, a police spokesman. But he wouldn’t describe the nature of the arguments or give a possible motive for the alleged attack.

Sterling was hiding a crowbar when he came to Adams’ apartment and tricked him into coming outside, Assistant Dist. Atty. Scott McPherson said Wednesday during Sterling’s first appearance in District Court. Sterling then let Adams walk in front of him and began striking him from behind with the crowbar.

“He readily admitted to two officers that he did this act,” McPherson told Judge Pro Tem Peggy Kittel.

Kittel set Sterling’s next court date for Monday.

Court records show the mother of a Lawrence girl filed a protection-from-stalking order against Sterling in 2002 after alleging that Sterling threatened to fire a gun at her house.

Sterling was sentenced last month to one year of probation in juvenile court for illegally having sex with the same girl. He pleaded no contest to one count of unlawful voluntary sexual relations, the so-called “Romeo & Juliet” law.

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