Children are not responsible. Adults are responsible for teaching children responsibility. The adults who were in charge of the gun and the child are responsible. They should never have allowed the gun to be in the hands of a child. If the adult who allowed this is not dead, he/she should be charged with murder.

http://ewebsmith.com/parent/knowyourkids.html

The race of the kid. The ONLY thing I care about!

This is just tragic. How sad, I wonder if the mothers prior visit upset the kid, did she blame the dad for her not being there for her son. Kids do need their mothers and maybe the mother placed the blame for her absence on the dad and the boy reacted, he got rid of the thing causing him to be away from his mother. You never know, my heart goes out to everyone involved.

Annabelle, she visited her son in Arizona, went home to Mississippi and when she found out about the shootings she went back to ARIZONA, not her ‘home out of state’. So yes, she was there for her kid.

The 8 year old knew how to use guns.
His father had consulted with a priest beforehand to get his view on whether he thought it would be ok to teach his son how shoot at that age, as the father was an avid hunter.

I don’t know anything about this kid, or about his family life. But I have an idea or two on what drove him to do this…

It seems that on the surface, both of his parents are hard-working. On the surface, both of my parents are hard-working. People of integrity, honesty, et cetera… But perhaps the boy feels differently about his parents. Is he an overachiever? Did his parents encourage him to excel?

As a child, my parents were reliable. They tried to discipline me well. My dad had a bit of a temper problem that no one outside the family knew; you would never guess how demanding and controlling he was of my mother when we first immigrated to America. He still has a temper problem and he’s still stubborn, but it’s not so bad anymore.

I excelled a lot, and my parents worked very hard to support the family. Of course I saw them… My mother especially during my younger years. We were very close, I think. I think… I don’t remember. But I remember crying in the Target store’s parking lot as she went away. I was a bit more than four.

Like I said, I excelled a lot. It became an every day thing. Perhaps people thought that I wouldn’t need encouragement, support, that I should be left to my own devices… I never received recognition after the first few days of school. It seemed to me that I was completely ignored.

Encouragement is crucial to a child’s development; encouragement is a signal that the child is “ok,” that the child is safe; it gives the child a sense of security. A lack of security, and the child will become anxious, have low self-esteem (even contrary to the reality), et cetera. If this lack of security becomes an ongoing thing… Well, for one, the child will probably become extremely sensitive to criticism. I know I was, and still am. Those of you who aren’t like this, consider yourself lucky; every bit of criticism hurts. That feeling of fear, devastation, at the very least feelings of inadequacy… it’s a terrible thing.

And you cling to it.

Sometimes you would remember it… Just remember it. I don’t know why. But you would just remember it. And then you would cry… Has this child every cried for seemingly no reason before? Or has he hidden it well?

Eventually, the child will subconsciously associate people with pain; insecurity, fear is painful. He may have friends; I had friends. I actually had fun with them. I even had fun with my family. But then, I would always remember that little thing that implied that I was “inadequate,” and I would hurt. It would confuse people; one minute you’re hunky-dory, the next you’re outright dissocial.

I’m not saying that the boy tried hard at school like I did, suffer near cardiac arrest like I did, develop premature wrinkles like I did, but… But if it’s what I’m suspecting (and I’m not confident in this either, it’s just a theory), then this boy mistrusted people, and that cynicism reached a breaking point.

Children can feel that much resentment towards their fellow human beings. I know I did… But to what point in my own experience and to what I nearly succeeded in doing I don’t feel I need to share.

I don’t have any credentials in child psychology, or psychology in general for that matter. I am only speaking from experience; I’m only trying to guess what this boy was feeling.

All my sympathies for this lad; I can only imagine how insecure and full of hate he was before he pulled the trigger.

The authorities should really get someone with actual creds to look at him and see if he has any attachment or personality disorders. We can’t change what he did and perhaps that cynicism will always be there, but at the very least he should receive therapy to deal with his insecurities (if he has any), or to just help him in general. Teach him good coping skills…

And of course, he could just be a psychopath.

I’ve heard this family often goes hunting… How wouldn’t it be sad if this desensitization and normalization of personally killing living beings purely for sport actually contributed to this? Though I’m not saying that he feels no remorse over what he has done.

If only problems like this in children were so obvious. Or parents had to get a degree in child psychology before becoming parents. But for now, we just do what we can do.

This entire discussion and the events surrounding it are completely idiotic. A child of 8 lacks the capacity to understand and appreciate the nature and consequences of his actions and premeditate a murder. Even if he were a genius, he would not have the conceptual ability to form mens rea. That is why EVERY OTHER NATION IN THE WORLD (except a couple of truly strange places) set the minimum age of criminal responsibility at 10, 12, or even 14. The United States is the only so-called civilized nation to set 7 as our minimum age of criminal responsibility, though in some backward states like Florida and Mississippi, children even younger may be charged with crimes that they do not understand.

This kid would have been better off 200 years ago – the prosecution would have had to prove capacity and the kid would have been aquitted. Children have killed others since antiquity. There is nothing adult about killing another human being. But we need to understand the fundamental differences in the way that children think and behave and the way that adults think and behave.

Adults – whether they live in small or large towns – were put on warning years ago that society expects them to secure their weapons and the failure to do so usually results in tragedy, sometimes death, and these days – charges against offending adults.

Finally, children this age are extremely likely to make false confessions. The Ryan Harris case in Chicago comes to mind. The police should never have questioned this child without an attorney present, or at least a guardian present. Why did they need to do this? If the evidence is there, they would have it – they did not need to extract an immediate confession. Any judge with sense would throw out the confession immediately.

While it is possible that this child is sociopathic – organically mentally ill – it is just as likely that he was playing with the gun and did not understand the ramifications of his actions. He also may be taking the rap for someone else. There is a case out west where a boy confessed to a murder that his mother iniated. Could this be a domestic disturbance where a child was used by an adult for nefarious purposes? If an 8 year old is used by an adult in this way, is he responsible at all? NOT!!!!

He just needs a little kentucky lovin is all!

I completely agree with aLawyer, I also think it is far to soon to judge this boy or even entertain the possibility that he could be guilty, -

The only thing in mind he is guilty of, is not being to hold his own, by himself, against adult detectives in an interview.

He found the bodies, is by himself, I think the detectives in this case took complete advantage of his age and obvious fear of everything that had just happened – watching his interview I don’t believe he killed them at all. I think he was trying to tell the detectives whatever they wanted to hear, trying to do what he perceived to be the thing to gain their approval.

The fact that they’re charging him with a pre-meditated murder is absolutely ludicrous, 8 yrs-old don’t have the mental ability to even meet the necessary criteria for anything beyond manslaughter if even that.

I watched this kid’s “confession” and it’s essentially meaningless. He starts out saying one thing and the interrogators lead him into saying something entirely different. Maybe they are getting at the truth, or maybe they’re leading him away from it. You can’t tell.

I have an 8 year-old son and it is *very* easy to get him to say what you want him to say (his older brother is always getting him to “confess” to stuff and he is a 10 year-old, not a trained police interrogator).

I’m not saying this kid didn’t do it. I’m just saying we really have to wait for the direct evidence–the ballistics, impartial adult witnesses who saw or heard stuff, etc.–before we’ll have a clue what’s going on here.

I am outraged at some of the press and comments I have seen. There is no proof that has been presented anywhere, other than this so-called confession, that this boy committed this crime. The only fact we know is that two grown men were murdered and we do not know who did it. Can you imagine what damage has been done to this child if he was NOT the murderer? He has been handcuffed, his ankles shackled and dragged into a courtroom. He was not permitted to attend his father’s funeral. He has a whole country of morons talking about him. At this point he probably doesn’t know if he did it or not, since these adults have convinced him that he did. If they had the right to release this video, I would certainly like to see the videos of the interviews with the Mom and the step mom, too. If it comes out that he is innocent I hope all of his accusers give him the help he is going to need to get over this. God bless and keep this little boy safe.

caution03, when you write, write his case is watched in Germany also, I normally don’t believe in anything I can’t touch or calculate, but now I pray often for this boy.
I go fully conform with alawyer. I hope this nightmare for the boy comes to an end soon. He shouldn´t be in a cell anywhere.

Even more terrifying than the possibility of an 8 year boy being accused of murders he probably could not have committed is that there are actually adults wanting to murder him, not much more than a baby. Even worst, is the fact that these adults are the ones we count on to protect us.
A police chief demanding the death of a young child is just disgusting. It makes me question him as a person and even more, him as a law enforcement officer. The district attorney is just as bad, both of them should be made to step down. The police who questioned the boy should be arrested and prosecuted for gross violations of his rights.
What amazes me is that if he were an adult all charges would be dropped because his rights were violated in every way possible. Not having an adult there on the boys side was illegal in every way possible.
The boy had to have been terrified. It seems like there is a big possibility not having anyone to protect him was just a way of life for him. The violence toward him by his step mother proved his dad was not there for him and his mother living in another state proves she was not there for him.
The thought that he may really have come home to find his father and friend dead and then, instead of being comforted and protected he was arrested, locked away and put through hours of interriogation and then hauled off to court, at times in shackles is just heart wrenching. What type of monster could bring himself to shackle a child. I guess the same type of monsters who could do all the injustices that have been done to him since the murders and the same type of monsters that would demand he be murdered.
I have cried for this little boy since the murders hapened. The thought that any one could think an 8 year old could be capable of reloading 8 times is just redicilous.
Why is the step mother not in jail and why would a fit father allow his child to be spanked 5 times over school work, much less anything else. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors. I do not understand how anyone can say there definantly was not abuse in the home. No one was there to see what was going on.