An 11-year-old Wisconsin boy accused of murdering his mother has been ordered to stand trial.
The boy is charged with first-degree intentional homicide. The district attorney’s office is seeking to try him as an adult. The court has ordered that the boy’s name not be revealed because he may still be tried as a child.
In July, the court found the boy competent, according to court records.
Milwaukee Detective Timothy Keller testified in court on Tuesday about speaking with the boy about his mother’s death.
The detective said he questioned the boy the next day and the then 10-year-old boy admitted shooting her but called it an accident, according to WISN.
“[The boy] stated that he took up a shooting stance and was pointing the gun at her as she was walking towards him and asking him to put it down. And that’s when he indicated that he fired the gun with his intent to scare her by shooting the wall behind her,” Keller testified.
“He had made a purchase on his mother’s Amazon account for some virtual reality goggles the morning after this homicide occurred. And [family] were concerned because he had had an argument with her about whether he could have these prior to the homicide,” Keller said.
She would be responsible for an unsecured firearm and child endangerment, but I don’t think they’re usually charged with the actual murder (unless it would be a felony murder rule).
But this kid certainly shouldn’t be tried as an adult.
In any case, I’d like to back waaaaay up and ask how this kid got access to a loaded gun in the first place.
I think it’s more often an involuntary manslaughter charge due to the gross negligence of allowing a child access to a gun. But sometimes it can be counted as murder even if it was unintentional if you were doing something so reckless and stupid you should have realized it would likely result in someone’s death. There’s an argument to be made that keeping a gun somewhere a child could access it would count.
Just depends on the state. So you have to look at the definitions. State A might have Murder and Manslaughter, State B might have Murder and Negligent Homicide and State C might have Murder-I and Murder-II or first and second degree.
I’ve seen a bunch where charges will come out of Texas for Assault and people freak out thinking it’s being played down despite Texas Assault being the same as Battery in their state. Or Aggravated Assault being the same as Attempted Murder in their state.