(PatriotWise.com) — A 10-year-old Texas boy admitted to using his grandfather’s gun to shoot and kill a sleeping man just one week before his eighth birthday in 2022, CNN reported.
In an April 18 press release, the Gonzales County Sheriff’s Office said the investigation into the January 2022 homicide of 32-year-old Brandon O’Quinn Rasberry at a Nixon, Texas, RV park had gone cold until the 10-year-old admitted to shooting him.
According to the sheriff’s office, the principal at a Nixon-Smiley Consolidated Independent elementary school contacted the Gonzalez County Sheriff’s Office on April 12 after a student threatened to kill another student on the school bus the day before.
School officials told the responding deputy that the boy claimed to have shot and killed a man two years ago. Based on the details provided, the sheriff’s office concluded that the child may have information about Rasberry’s murder.
The boy underwent a forensic interview during which he provided first-hand information about Rasberry’s homicide, the press release said.
According to the sheriff’s office, when the boy was visiting his grandfather at the RV park on January 16, 2022, he discovered a handgun in the glove compartment of the grandfather’s truck.
The boy told investigators that he went inside Rasberry’s RV, found the victim sleeping, and shot him in the head. He fired the weapon again, this time into the couch in Rasberry’s RV. He then exited the RV and put the gun back in his grandfather’s truck.
When asked if Rasberry had done something to anger him, the boy said no, the sheriff’s office said.
The grandfather later pawned the handgun, which was recovered by investigators at a Seguin, Texas, pawn shop on April 12. Forensic analysis matched the firearm with the two spent casings from the crime scene.
Authorities transferred the boy to a San Antonio psychiatric hospital, where he was evaluated. He was subsequently taken to the sheriff’s office, where he was charged with making terroristic threats in connection with the April 11 incident on the school bus.
District Superintendent Jeff Van Auken informed parents in an April 18 letter that the boy would not be returning to school, KSAT reported.
Because the boy was only 7 at the time of the shooting, the county attorney’s office would not file murder charges. Under Texas law, a child cannot be held responsible for criminal acts until reaching the age of 10.
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