Posted on 04/21/2024 6:45:23 AM PDT by texanyankee
GONZALES COUNTY, Texas – A boy, who is now 10 years old, confessed to an unsolved murder from 2022, Gonzales County Sheriff’s Office announced on Friday.
But GCSO said he will not be charged with the crime because he committed it before the age of culpability.
Brandon O’Quinn Rasberry, 32, was shot and killed while he slept in his RV at the Lazy J RV Park located at 85 Wild Meadow in Nixon. He had just moved there four days before.
His body was discovered after he failed to show up to work for two days. He had been shot one time in the head.
‘He’s forgiven’: Father of man killed by child in Gonzales County RV park hopes boy can be saved
In a press release, GCSO said on April 12, they received a call from a Nixon-Smiley Independent School District principal about a student who threatened to assault and kill another student on a bus. During the district’s threat assessment, they learned that the child made a statement about shooting and killing a man two years ago.
Investigators questioned the child at a child advocacy center. He described in detail shooting and killing a man in a trailer in Nixon that was consistent with Rasberry’s slaying.
He told investigators that he was visiting his grandfather at his house, which was a few lots apart from Rasberry’s. The boy said he got a 9 mm pistol from the glove box of his grandfather’s truck and entered Rasberry’s home.
He told investigators he saw the man sleeping in his bed and he shot him. He said he discharged the firearm a second time into a couch in the RV and then returned the firearm to the glovebox of his grandfather’s truck, GCSO said.
The child said he had never met Brandon and wasn’t mad at him.
The child told investigators his grandfather had pawned the gun. On April 12, investigators located the firearm at a pawn shop in Seguin.
The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms San Antonio Field Office used ballistic testing to determine that the gun was the same one used to kill Rasberry.
The child was placed on 72-hour emergency detention “because of the severity of the crime and because of the continued concern for the child’s mental wellbeing the child,” the sheriff’s office stated.
He was transported to a psychiatric hospital in San Antonio for evaluation and treatment and then was taken to GCSO, where he was booked on terrorist threat charges relating to the school bus incident.
Texas Penal Code 8.07 states that a child does not have criminal culpability until they reach the age of 10 years old, so he will not be charged with murder in Rasberry’s death.
In a letter to parents, Nixon-Smiley Superintendent Jeff Van Auken said that the child will not be returning to the elementary school he was attending.
Or the Grandfather killed the man and convinced the child that it was him instead.
But at 7 years old you don't use such a label. Of course he needs very serious psychiatric intervention. It's also essential that someone look into his home life...and parents...very closely. You look for abuse and neglect...exposure to abnormal experiences. You also look into the possibility of some kind of genetic issue effecting thinking and behavior.
That is a very good insight.
Anybody who can kill another human being needs to be treated as an adult. I don’t care what the age.
pure evil criminal...he knew right from wrong...he still does..
My theory is that once the kid knew his grandpa had a gun stashed in the pickup, the kid decided one evening he was gonna sneak out & use it on someone - just like in a video game.
Once he had it he started checking for unlocked RVs nearby & unfortunately that victim didnt lock his door.
I don't think electroshock therapy will help with this one, pre-frontal lobotomy might be worth a try. But I doubt that anything short of an execution would really be an effective treatment.
Seven year old boys are known to do stupid things.Seven year old boys who are being badly abused....and/or neglected...are known to do *very* stupid things.
The issue of concern is not the murder he committed when he was seven - looks like he gets a free pass for that.
The problem is how many folks is he going to kill over the rest of his life. And I have no confidence that the psychiatric community can fix him.
Yes,it certainly seems possible that he will turn out to be a nightmare when he reaches adulthood. I suppose he could now be executed...or imprisoned for life to avoid that. Otherwise the only other option is to attempt to make sure he as an upbringing conducive to making a respectable adult...and wait and see.
Or the kid came back and was noticeably different, or showed too much interest in the case, or something else clued him in, and when he checked the gun he saw it had been fired.
Chances are the family knew something was up with the kid. Kitchen knives could have been disappearing and turning up under his bed he could have been caught torturing animals or hurting relatives. He wasn’t this screwed up and nobody knew.
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