By A 10-year-old boy from Texas confessed to fatally shooting a sleeping man when he was 7 years old, according to authorities from the Gonzales County Sheriff’s Office.
The homicide investigation into the death of 32-year-old Brandon O’Quinn Rasberry, who was shot once in the head in January 2022 at an RV park in Nixon, Texas, had gone cold until the child recently made comments about shooting and killing a man two years ago.
On April 12, a principal at Nixon-Smiley Consolidated Independent School District informed Gonzales County authorities that the elementary school student had threatened to assault and kill another student on a school bus the previous day.
This prompted the authorities to conduct a threat assessment. School district officials further informed the responding deputy that the 10-year-old had made prior comments about shooting and killing a man two years ago.
Gonzales County criminal investigators determined, based on the child’s statements at school, that he may have knowledge about Rasberry’s death.
The school district superintendent advised parents in a letter that the child would not be returning to the school.
During a forensic interview at a child advocacy center, the child provided information that was consistent with first-hand knowledge of Rasberry’s homicide.
The child stated that in January 2022, while visiting his grandfather, who lived in the same RV park, he obtained a pistol from his grandfather’s truck glove box.
He entered Rasberry’s RV and fired a shot, striking the man once in the head while Rasberry was sleeping. The child stated that he had not met Rasberry previously.
After leaving the RV, the child fired the pistol again into the couch before returning the firearm to the truck.
The child indicated he was not angry with Rasberry and that Rasberry had never done anything to make him mad.
The child’s statement that his grandfather had pawned the gun led investigators to locate the pistol.
The forensic analysis identified the pawned gun as the same weapon that killed Rasberry. Due to continued concern for the child’s wellbeing, he was placed under 72-hour emergency detention and transported to a psychiatric hospital in San Antonio, Texas, for evaluation and treatment.
Later, Gonzales County Juvenile Probation booked him on charges related to the school bus incident. The child awaits his court date at a later time, under the supervision of Gonzales County Juvenile Probation.
The Gonzales County Attorney’s Office will not file or accept murder charges in this case because the child was 7 years old at the time of the incident, and Texas law prohibits holding a child legally responsible for a criminal act before the age of 10.
Credit: CNN
