Posted on 12/01/2008 5:36:21 PM PST by JoeProBono
Phoenix, AZ (AHN) - An 8-year-old boy who confessed to shooting to death his father and a man renting a room from his father in Arizona earlier this month, had told authorities he kept a log recording the instances his father and stepmother hit him. According to a search affidavit from a St. Johns, Ariz. Police officer, the boy told Child Protective Services agents that 1,000 spankings was his threshold.
(Excerpt) Read more at allheadlinenews.com ...
Prosecutors entered a plea deal in the case last week, but the details aren't clear. Prosecutors had sought to drop one of two first-degree murder charges against the boy.
Police records show family members, including the boy's grandparents, said Romano and his wife were too hard on the boy and they weren't surprised to hear he was a suspect in the shooting.
Police Chief Roy Melnick wrote in his report: "I comforted them as best we could. After several minutes, [the boy's grandmother] shouted out in an angry and loud tone, 'I knew this would happen. They were too hard on [the boy]. I knew he did it, He spent the night in my bed cuddling up to me. I had a feeling he did it. If an eight year old boy is capable of doing this, it's [him]."
Sad for the life that is ruined for this boy, but wonder the future damage the world has been saved.
I wonder if they will keep in a facility. I doubt it.
Let’s say he’s been keeping a tab since he was four, and that’s early to start keeping up with that stuff, that’s nearly a spanking a day.
No child that I have ever met does so much bad that they deserve that. And I’ve met some doozies.
Geez...what do you say to that....
Grandparents always say that the kids are diceplined to much.
He was abused. They were cruel
My grandson is 8 and is as innocent as the day is long......he has good parents. I can't imagine what went on in this house to make a "baby" kill his father.
Whatever. WE really do not know anything yet. Probably we will never know what went on in that house. He is a juvenile and thier records are sealed and the public is not allowed in the court room.
I agree. This is a case of child abuse. I am siding with the boy on this one.
I can wrap names around this particular problem.
It’s true that we will never know. There have been cases in the past of truly sociopathic and psychopathic children but it looks like this most likely isn’t one of those.
Not me. If they were abused, that would be an entirely different story.
So why did he kill the guy renting?
Hospital records?
Something doesn’t come together on this as yet!
Well, we’ll never know for sure, without having met the people in question (too late now). But is this kid telling the truth, and can he count that accurately?
Spare the rod, don’t get shot dead by the child.
If this kid is a psychopath, I think they need to test his 1,000 volt limit.
Well, all I am saying is that we will never know what really happened here.
I really feel for the kid. People here make all kinds of judgements here on this forum on cases like these when they know nothing about the case.
Since he is a juvenile, we will never have access to the court records. It is hard for us to believe a 8 year old could do such a evil act without some logical reason.
Daddy is no longer here to defend himself is he?
Also, as far as I know, the boarder had nothing to do with this. Why was he killed?
I hope to God this child gets the help he so desparately needs.
The grandparents will have to give specific examples and those examples will either show abuse or harsh treatment or not. Perhaps there are hospital/doctor records.
Let's accept that the child was abused (for argument's sake). Now what? That a child killed instead of asking others for help (as far as we know), that a child killed two people at 8 years old... What do we do with that?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27600105/
Police said Romero’s son planned and methodically carried out the killings, and confessed.
Prosecutors said that there was no record of any complaints filed about the boy with Arizona Child Protective Services and that the youngster had no disciplinary record at school.
...while friends and neighbors disputed any suggestion the boy had been abused by his father.
They painted a picture of Vincent Romero as a caring father who seemed to be doing all he could to raise a polite and respectful boy.
“They were always together doing things as a family, fishing, hunting,” Carlos Diaz, a cousin of Romero’s current wife, said after the funeral Mass at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.
Pure speculation...
They should make certain to check the kid out for sexual abuse. If the two who were killed were that sort, that might explain why they were both killed, and that would be something the kid may not come forward with.
Well, children do have to set limits for their parents. Wait, how does that go again?
It is likely that tens of thousands of children are abused as this boy purportedly has been. If what the boy says is true, than one has to admire him for not letting his parents break his spirit as many other children are maimed for life because their parents are not parent material.
Just imagine, an adult beating up a little boy or girl; too sad to think about. Adults who harm children are in the same league as terrorists, IMO.
That was my first suspicion.
It would explain a lot. But then so would a psychopathic personality. The two of course are not mutually exclusive.
This is sort of disturbing statement.
“I had a feeling he did it. If an eight year old boy is capable of doing this, it’s [him].”
If that’s the case, the story will be surpressed in the media.
>So why did he kill the guy renting?
>Hospital records?
>Something doesn’t come together on this as yet!
You’re right something doesn’t taste right here.
The grandparents might have been the ones to do it, it seems like there was a LOT of anger there, possibly over the choice of spouse.
Hospital records for the kid,you mean? Not all abused kids wind up in ERs or doctors' offices.And it does sound as if he might have been abused.
If any form a discipline doesn’t work, you have to try something else. Clearly, if they really were spanking him that often it wasn’t working. Discipline isn’t about a parent letting off steam, it’s about teaching a kid the limits. I had one son who just became more defiant when we spanked him. I had to use other things.
“Grandparents always say that the kids are diceplined to much.”
I beg to differ on that. My Grandmother had words of wisdom on everything, and now that I am older I believe she was correct.
I am inclined to agree with this Grandmother too. I am not against taking a switch to a kid, but 1000 times? Okay if you are ‘having’ to do it that many times the kid has problems, or the parent has problems, I am not sure which. (or both)
I know to this day, My Granny was right on so many things.
Who besides the grandparents are saying he was mistreated? I am not saying he wasn’t, but that’s pretty thin soup. Even the grandparent made a somewhat disturbing statement about the kid. When the kid said a 1,000 spanks, we have his word only so far. No journal is mentioned as having been seen, just the kid saying that.
Not sure about this one.
The audio I heard of part of the police interview with this boy was downright chilling. There was no emotion whatsoever in his voice at any point. He sounded like a robot. He didn’t even sound like a child telling a story about anything- much less murder.
I have no idea if the boy was born with emotional/psychiatric problems and the parents did not get help for him, or if he was abused to the point he became mentally shut down or psychopathic or had other trauma in his life but he sure sounded like he has serious issues.
The only time I have seen a child like him was when I once took care of a boy that had idiots for parents- his mom ran off with his uncle and his entire extended family was so caught up in the drama of one siblings wife taking off with another sibling’s hubby that the children of both were neglected. Noone in that family had even bothered to think how a train wreck like that had effected the kids involved. I told the grandma he needed counseling and to this day I expect him to have major issues at some point and he is grown now. No feelings, no emotion, just vacant.
There is a story about this boy in AZ that is yet to come out I think. When I first heard it I thought perhaps the men were sexually abusing him- still a thought in my mind. But it could be his parent’s divorce was a major trauma or he was severely abused in some way.
“I had one son who just became more defiant when we spanked him.”
Is that you Mom!!??
(I knew when I was in REAL trouble when my old man would have to talk to me. Just a quiet talk. And that was it.)
LOL
Actually, that son IS a Freeper, but not you.... ;)
“He was abused. They were cruel”
I absolutely agree! This was most definitely abuse. He’s 8 years old for God’s sake. This was not ‘discipline’. This appears to me to have been the product of an emotionally immature or troubled parent who was unable to control his anger repeatedly humiliating a little boy. How much emotional hurt must there have been to this child to bring him to the point at which he would kill his own father? What a horrible tragedy.
1,000 spankings is one a day for less than three years. Considering that there could have been some tough days where more than one was administered, that would mean that there had to be days when there was none.
My kids would go through spells when they were really defiant and it would be tough on all of us and then they’d go for weeks without a need for any discipline. I couldn’t tell you the average though. Never thought to keep a record.
But the thing that’s weirder is that an 8 year old decided on a limit, kept track, and then blew away his dad when he reached it. There’s something chillingly cold-blooded about that child. He sounds like a psychopath.
An 8 year old who can formulate a plan like this, and keep records of specific instances, and take action when the proper time comes, must be some sort of genius. Assuming the records were anywhere near accurate, and not just flights of fancy or the product of bad math (1,000 spankings sounds like a lot) then this is a pretty interesting story. Why are they saying he shot the roommate? That’s the element that could potentially dispel this as a “child abuse issue” and flag it as a premeditated, cold-blooded murder.
So why did he kill the guy renting?
Dad’s boyfriend??
I hope to God this child gets the help he so desparately needs.
God is pretty clear about what kind of help murderers need. Didn’t this boy ever think of telling his teacher? DHS is just salivating to get hold of this kind of case.
Possible, but as Cromagnum? pointed out, this was planned. If in fact he kept a journal and once 1,000 was reached decided to kill dear old dad... well that’s cold. If he could do those things then why not phone social service or go to the cops?
1,000 spankings is the other problem. That’s a LOT. No one except the grandparent seems to have noticed all this.
The more I think about it the less believable it becomes.
Gives a whole new meaning to “this is going to hurt me more than you.”
That’s what came to my mind when I heard this story.
Cindy Anthony says Casey is a wonderful, caring mother.
It’s actually quite believable.
I think if you follow the Naruto cartoon series you’d find the statement about 1000 beatings or canings being the limit.
I’d have to go with some kind of sexual abuse here... the tip-off is that the boy was reportedly being spanked and treated ‘too harshly’ by both his father and the father’s wife (who’s strangely absent from the story, it doesn’t even mention if she’s his mother), but the people he killed were the father and the renter. I could see how he’d kill the renter if he was going after the father and the wife and didn’t want to leave witnesses or thought the guy would get in the way, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Plus, despite the allegations of physical abuse, it was only the female in the household that he didn’t kill.
I dunno. He’s 8. If he’s been keeping a log for three years, that means he started at age 5. How many people start keeping logs at that age?
Somehow the story just sounds a little too far-fetched to me. I think this kid is good at embellishing.
His father could have overdone it nonetheless.
She was in Alabama I believe.
Kids can be psychopaths.
It's the amps, not the volts, that will kill you.
If I ever have the misfortune to meet this kid, I’m going to smile and say “How do you do?”
If he tells me to buy him an ice cream cone, I’ll ask, “What flavor and how many scoops?”
How many times do we hear mothers of suspected criminals say they "know" their son/daughter didn't do it? Friends and neighbors describe criminal suspects as being nice people.
As to grandmothers, they all shouldn't be painted with the same broad brush.
Grandparents aren't clones of other grandparents, for heaven's sake. We've all had individual personalities throughout our lives.
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