Lawyer for boy accused of killing mom asks to lower bail to what he has in his piggy bank
A 10-year-old is accused of killing his mother over a VR headset.
MILWAUKEE – A Milwaukee County judge has refused to lower the bail of a 10-year-old accused of fatally shooting his mother after she refused to buy him a virtual reality headset.
The boy’s attorney argued during his initial court appearance Wednesday that bail should be lowered from $50,000 to $100.
“He told us about piggy banks with savings that he had from gifts, from birthday presents, and from flushing pillows through the couch that he was able to save,” said Angela Cunningham, a public defender.
The charges stem from a Nov. 21 incident where the boy allegedly shot his mother in the face after she refused to buy him an Oculus virtual reality headset from Amazon. After her death, he allegedly got into his mother’s account and bought the video game.
After the shooting, the boy said he was woken up by his mother at 6am. The boy “first told police that he went to her bedroom and got his mother’s gun. He went to the basement where she grabbed laundry. He originally described the twist. the gun around his finger and then it ‘accidentally went off,'” the complaint states.
In a later interview with police, the 10-year-old boy “admitted that he did not rotate the gun when he shot his mother,” the complaint states. The 10-year-old further told police that he “admitted that his mother would not let him have anything from Amazon that he wanted. (The 10-year-old) admitted that he got the gun because he was angry was. with her because she woke him up at 6 a.m.,” the complaint states. The complaint goes on to say “he attempted to shoot the wall to ‘scare her,’ after which he admitted that he shot her in the face.” The boy “admitted that he knew guns were dangerous and could kill people,” the complaint states.
The boy was charged as an adult last month with alternative charges of first-degree intentional homicide or first-degree reckless homicide.
Wisconsin law requires children as young as 10 to be charged as adults for certain serious crimes, though the boy’s attorneys may try to move the case to juvenile court. The boy, who family members say has mental health issues, is being held in juvenile detention.
The boy mostly kept his head down during the trial. Carroll ordered that he not be placed in handcuffs or any other type of restraints and prohibited the media from publishing any personal information about him, including his image and address.
With FOX Milwaukee and the Associated Press
