A 10-year-old boy from Wisconsin has been charged with first-degree reckless homicide as an adult and is being held on $50,000 bail, after shooting and killing his mother because she wouldn't buy him a virtual reality headset on Amazon. If convicted of the charges, he could face up to 60 years in prison.
The shooting occurred on November 21 in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee.
At first, the Milwaukee police ruled the shooting as accidental but the boy's family notified the police that they suspected otherwise, according to local media reports.
A day after he shot his mother, he logged into her Amazon account and ordered the virtual reality headset that he had killed her over.
How did the boy manage to shoot his mother?
According to local reports, the boy shot his 44-year-old mother at close range, and the bullet entered her eye and exited through the back of her head.
The initial reports stated that the boy snuck into his mother's room after she woke up at 6 a.m. in order to steal her gun, which was kept under her bed. He then went down to their basement where his mother was doing the laundry and was "twirling the gun around [his] finger, causing the trigger to be pulled," NBC news reported.
After he shot her, he ran upstairs to his 26-year-old sister and woke her up, upon which she called 9-1-1.
In subsequent interviews following the incident, the boy admitted that the shooting had actually been intentional, and not accidental as had been assumed. The police report stated that the boy admitted that "his mother would not allow him to have something from Amazon that he wanted to have." He also admitted that he took the keys to the gun safe the night before he shot her.
The boy admitted to the police that he knew how dangerous guns were and that they can kill people.
According to the boy's 26-year-old sister, he has had "rage issues" his entire life and "five different imaginary people" that would talk to him.
The police complaint report stated that a family member alleged that the boy would pick their puppy up by the tail and swing the puppy around until it whined or howled in pain. This started when he was 4 years old, according to the complaint.
"Anytime there is a crime in the city, whether it's by a 10-year-old or someone much older, it's concerning," Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson told TMJ4. "I don't want people getting hurt. As for this case, I'm just learning about it. I got the details this morning."
The boy's court hearing is scheduled for December 7.