8-year-old murders father... now what?

Father 'murdered' by son, aged 8 

An eight-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of his father and another man in the US state of Arizona.

Police in St Johns, a small community north-east of Phoenix, said the child had confessed to shooting the two men with a .22-calibre rifle on Wednesday.

"Who would think an eight-year-old kid could kill two adults?" said St Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick on Friday.

A judge has ordered a psychological evaluation of the boy, who is being held at a juvenile detention centre.

He did not have a record of bad behaviour at school, and there had been no indication of any problems at home, prosecutors said.

Mr Melnick said police officers had arrived at the child's home within minutes of the shooting on Wednesday evening.

They found one victim just outside the front door and the other dead in an upstairs room, he added.

The second man is believed to have been lodging in the house.

The boy had gone to a neighbour's house and said he "believed that his father was dead", Apache County prosecutor Brad Carlyon said. Police later obtained a confession from the boy for the two killings.

His defence lawyer, Benjamin Brewer, said police had overreached in questioning him without representation from a parent or a lawyer, and that they had not advised him of his rights.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7717545.stm

Do you think an 8-year-old is mentally capable of murder (mens rea)?  Do you think he should be charged as an adult?  What punishment should he have?  Do you think the boy is a bad seed, or do you think something was going on there?

I am unsure that an 8 yr old can rationalise the full consequences of death/murder. I do not know if he can see that this is a permanent ending to his dad.

This is a toughie. I think intense pysh evaluations and placement in a home where he can be scrutinized, and supervised is the best bet--indefinitely.

I guess anyone is capable of murder. I wonder if it was on purpose or by accident?? Honestly he should be punished for his wrong doing, but not as if he was an adult. For a kid that age it's hard to explain. I guess for his punishment though, he should go through some through juvenile program or something where kids who are in similiar situations go through.   

 I'm not sure that the boys should be eligible for the same punishment an adult would receive, but I believe he should likely be held in a mental institution for the rest of his days.

As for the father (I'm assuming that is where he got the gun) I don't know what to say.  If you leave a firearm within reach of a child, you're asking for trouble.  Stupid, stupid move.

I don't think he should be charged as an adult, he's just a little boy regardless of his crime.

On the other hand when I saw the Columbine shooters released when they were "of age" it shocked me, after all the kids they killed I thought they should have had a harsher punnishment.

The report I saw on the Today show this morning indicated that the child was also a "victim," but they would not elaborate.  It will be interesting to see how this story plays out.

AirForceWife&MommyX4:

On the other hand when I saw the Columbine shooters released when they were "of age" it shocked me, after all the kids they killed I thought they should have had a harsher punnishment.

The Columbine shooters killed themselves in the massacre.  But, had they not, I suspect they would have been charged as adults.

Having an 8 year old myself, I think he would actually know that shooting someone would be wrong and what the consequeces of that would be.  I don't know about this boy, but he wasn't just playing with a gun and accidentally shoot someone, he killed two men.  I don't really know what I think of it, I just heard the story on my local news last night, but I know the prosecutor wants to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.  Going to be charged as an adult, if I remember right. 

 My first thought is ...i wonder if he was being abused.

Maybe i am nieve. But i do not think that an 8 year old would have malace aforethought. i just can not imagine an 8 year old planning a murder. There would have to be serious grievous circumstances. 

I do not think an eight year old should be charged as an adult. But i do think he is going to need alot of psychiatric help. 

 Wow! I hadn't heard about this....he is only 8, so I don't think he should be tried as an adult because mentally I just don't see how he could have fully understood what he was doing. I would hate to have to be the judge or a jury on that case.

If you charged a little boy as an adult, what would you do with him. Can you imagine what would happen to an eight-year-old in an adult prison? I think there is probably a lot more to this story. I hope that boy gets help.

sorry my bad Lissa, I was meaning the school shooters from Jonesboro Arkansas. In 1998 when we were stationed in Little rock it was all over the news. One of the boys was 11, the other was 13 when they killed 4 classmates and were not tried as an adults. The older boy was released when he was 21 and is now being prosecuted for committing a different crime after he was released.

here's the link

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/news/261498.php

it's hard to define at what age kids should be tried as adults, personally I think the 11 and 13 year old should have been tried as adults, but an 8 year old I think that's too young to know exactly the ramifications of his actions.

littlefoot:

 I'm not sure that the boys should be eligible for the same punishment an adult would receive, but I believe he should likely be held in a mental institution for the rest of his days.

I completely agree.

It makes me sick to think that there are children out there that do such horrible things. They committed a crime, they should be punished - and I would feel the same way if it were my child.

Everytime I hear of something like this, it always go's back to little James Bulger.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger#The_murder)

Two 10 year old boys kidnapped the 3 yrd old from a shopping centre talking him for a "walk" along a train track where they tortured,murdered and dismembered his little body,  then left him on the track (and covered him in rubble) to be run over by a train! They were sent to prison for less than 15 yrs and have now been released with new identities so no one knows who they really are or what they did!

OMG that link to the 2 ten year olds is astonishing...they look so innocent and sweet in their mug shots...I just can't imagine someone younger than my middle son doing something like that to a toddler. those boys don't deserve to start life over, no punnishment is good enough in situations like that.