Investigators in Utah are working to determine what to do after a 9-year-old boy shot his father in the back of the head and then attacked him with a hatchet last month.
The 31-year-old father was taken a hospital and later died.
Newly released police documents, including a frantic 911 call, provide fresh information on what happened on February 16 in Tooele. According to the documents, the man and his son lived in the house with two other adults and four more children, all under the age of 11, KUTV reported.
“The victim and his son retired to bed early due to behavioral problems and went into the bedroom that they share,” a detective wrote in a warrant that names the 9-year-old as a suspect in the father’s murder.
“The victim’s son later emerged from the room and said that his dad was bleeding from the head and was dead,” the detective added.
The document did not describe the “behavioral problems” that sent the dad and child to bed early, but both current and past roommates of the father told police about some of the child’s behaviors, which one of the current roommates described as “typical child behaviors” like bringing a knife to the park, telling inappropriate jokes, and not doing chores.
A previous roommate told police that the boy “choked her when they were playing on the trampoline” and “another time when [the boy] was caught lighting things on fire in the basement.”
“The biggest concern,” the documents said, ” … was when they found that one of their dogs had been stabbed.”
The father was described as having a “rough” parenting style without “very much nurturing.”
On the night of the shooting, one of the adult roommates called 911 and told dispatchers the man was “bleeding severely from his head, his ears, and his mouth. He is in a pool of blood in his bed,” according to KSTU.
The woman said she didn’t now what happened, that “his son came in her to check on him, he works graveyard, and he’s in a pool of blood.”
When officers arrived, they determined he had been shot in the back of the head and had been struck with an edged weapon. The officers confiscated a gun and a tomahawk at the scene. When they spoke with the 9-year-old, he told officers he “heard a loud bang and looked up to see his dad bleeding.”
The documents said that there was more to the story, however. A doctor said the wounds were not self-inflicted.
“Some were to the back of the head and there were fresh and bleeding cuts to the side, fingers and arm, which the doctor said appeared to be defensive wounds,” the documents say.
The child was arrested, although no information has been released because of his age.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Shutterstock]
