MILWAUKEE — An 11-year-old boy from Wisconsin will be put on trial as an adult after law enforcement and prosecutors said he shot and killed his mother over a virtual reality headset.
The boy, who was 10 years old at the time of the alleged shooting last year, sat in the courtroom coloring on Tuesday during his preliminary hearing, WTMJ reported.
Milwaukee police testified in court about what they believed happened last November when Quiana Mann was shot and killed in her home’s basement.
Detective Timothy Keller said that the boy, whose name is not being used in news reports, told him at first that he thought it was a confetti gun that he had picked up. Keller said the boy’s story changed and that the pre-teen said the gun accidentally went off.
When Keller believed the killing was an accident, the boy was released to his family.
But police said it wasn’t an accident.
“I wanted to believe something like that was the truth and it wouldn’t come to this,” Keller testified, according to WTMJ. “Looking back at it, I may have overlooked other red flags that may have come up.”
The boy was taken into custody for further questioning and he told police that he had aimed the gun at his mother and was going to fire it near her to scare her. But Keller said that the story didn’t make sense.
“He indicated he had closed one of his eyes and believed he closed the wrong eye,” Keller testified, according to WTMJ. “You have a different perception, depending on which eye is opened or closed with shooting. The reason [his statement] was not consistent with what happened is because, while that is accurate for something far away if I take the distance of intermediate, that’s less of a margin of error. My target is so much closer, it doesn’t move as much. Which would mean if sights are pointed at her head, and the only difference is which eye is open, it’s not going to make a difference of missing and striking her.”
Keller said the boy had used his mother’s Amazon account to buy a set of virtual reality goggles the day after her death — a device, the detective said, that the mother and son argued about before she died, WISN reported.
The boy is now facing a first-degree intentional homicide charge and has been ordered to trial, as of now. His case could be sent to the juvenile justice system.
The boy is in the custody of the Juvenile Detention Center on $50,000 bail, WISN reported.
