Inset: Robert Babin (Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez). Background: 18700 Block of Holly Way in Harris County, Texas (Google Maps).
A man is believed to have struck his mother in the head with a hammer during an argument and then confessed his grisly crime to a friend on a gaming platform right after the violence.
“I am in trouble and I need your help,” Robert Babin, 24, allegedly wrote on Wednesday following the crime, according to court documents reviewed by local ABC affiliate KTRK. “I just assaulted my mother with a hammer, I got angry, I don’t know what to do, I can’t go to prison.”
“I have to get rid of the hammer and destroy the evidence before the police get there,” he allegedly added. “I don’t want to end up on Death Row. I hit her a few times on the head and the side. She’s barely breathing.”
Authorities in Houston said the gaming friend convinced Babin to call the police, according to local Fox affiliate KRIV. However, the friend reportedly only noticed Babin’s messages about two hours after the suspect sent them, leaving the victim to suffer for an extended period of time.
Babin was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. If convicted as charged, he faces up to 2o years in prison.
Police reportedly arrived at the 18700 block of Holly Way in Harris County, just west of Houston, on Wednesday to find the 61-year-old woman in the backyard, bleeding from the head, and unable to speak.
She was airlifted to a nearby hospital in serious condition, where she remained the following day.
Babin initially told authorities he had left his mother napping at the house while he went to the store — and returned to be confused by the police presence, according to KTRK.
The alleged messages to the friend, if it was indeed Babin who sent them, would debunk that claim.
Babin remained detained in the Harris County Jail as of Friday.
