A 10-year-old boy has asked that his bond be lowered to $100 (£82.19). He is accused of shooting his mother because she wouldn’t buy him a virtual reality headset.
The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the boy has been charged with first-degree reckless homicide after his mother, Quiana Mann, 44, was shot in the face on November 21.
Prosecutors say he then used her credit card to buy an Oculus VR headset after she refused to buy it for him. He then told his grandmother he was “sorry” for killing his mother and asked where the package was.
The boy’s lawyer, Angela Cunningham, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Wednesday, December 14, that the bond should be lowered because that’s all he has saved up and he doesn’t have a job.
The boy’s bail is currently set at $50,000 (£41,074), which he cannot pay.
He told us about piggy banks with savings that he had from gifts, from birthday gifts, and scavenging through cushions through the couch that he’s been able to save up,
Cunningham told the court, as per a source.
Wednesday was the first time the boy went to court in person.
In the end, Judge Jane Carroll thought about the argument but decided not to change the bail amount of $50,000.
Paul Dedinsky, the prosecutor in the case, also asked the court to consider putting a travel ban on the boy, but the judge decided not to do that.
The criminal complaint says the boy told police he was upset on November 21 because his mother woke him up early and wouldn’t buy him the headset from Amazon.
The complaint says,
He ‘first told police that he went to her bedroom and retrieved his mother’s gun. He went to the basement where she was grabbing some laundry. He originally described twirling the gun around on his finger and then it ‘accidentally went off.
But in a later interview with the police, he ‘admitted that he was not twirling the gun around when he shot his mom’.
According to his grandmother, he has trouble hearing voices in his head.
For some serious crimes, like murder, the state of Wisconsin says that children as young as 10 must be charged as adults.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the judge did not order the boy to be held down or put in chains. The boy is being kept at the Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center for the time being. If he is found guilty, he could spend up to 60 years in prison.
A family member wrote in the description of a GoFundMe page for Quiana’s funeral that the mother of four was “cherished and loved by all who knew her.”
