The son of a prominent retired judge in Texas has been charged with killing his parents because he thought his mother was trying to put a sleeping pill in his mouth.
Seth Carnes, 45, is charged with capital murder in the deaths of retired Williamson County District Judge Burt Carnes and his wife, Susan Carnes, both 74.
An arrest affidavit says that Seth Carnes admitted killing his parents with a Remington 870 shotgun, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
The affidavit says that police were alerted to the murders by Seth Carnes 19-year-old daughter, who called 911 shortly before midnight on Monday and said that her father — who lived in a garage apartment attached to his parents’ Walburg home — had just shot her grandfather.
Williamson County deputies arrived and saw the suspect leaving his parents’ home, and he reportedly confessed he had just killed them.
The deputies found Burt Carnes in the home’s living room and Susan Carnes in her son’s bedroom in the garage apartment. Paramedics tried unsuccessfully to save them both.
“The preliminary investigation suggests that the murders resulted from a disagreement, escalating into family violence and death,” according to a release from the sheriff’s office.
Seth Carnes reportedly told deputies his mother was trying to make him take a sleeping pill and “I did not want to take it.” When asked why he killed his father, he reportedly said he’d gone into the house to look for something “and figured I would finish it off.”
Burt Carnes, the son of an FBI agent, spent 24 years on the bench in Williamson County and was well-respected, the American-Statesman said.
“When I went into the (district attorney’s) office, I was assigned to Carnes’ court mostly, I think, because the DA figured Carnes would put me in my place because I was a young pretty brash prosecutor,” said Dan Gattis Jr., a former state representative who served as a prosecutor from 2000 to 2003.
As for Susan Carnes, Gattis said she was a retired elementary school teacher who volunteered at her grandchildren’s school
“She was a pillar of the community,” Gattis said. “She was always kind and helpful.”
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[Featured image: Seth Carnes/Williamson County Sheriff’s Office]
