When Children Kill

The King Brothers
On the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2001, two Florida brothers, Alex King, 12, and Derek King, 13, bludgeoned their father, Terry King, to death with a baseball bat while he was asleep. The boys then set the house on fire in an effort to cover up the crime. The brothers confessed to committing the murder, but implicated 41-year-old convicted child molester Ricky Chavis, who they said was involved in a sexual relationship with Alex and persuaded them to kill their father. Alex and Derek pled guilty to arson and third-degree murder and were sentenced to seven and eight years in state prison, respectively. Ricky Chavis, who helped the brothers avoid arrest after the killing, was sentenced to 35 years after he was found guilty of accessory after the fact to first-degree murder and evidence tampering.


Jasmine Richardson
The youngest person ever to be convicted of multiple murders in Canada, Jasmine Richardson was twelve when she brutally murdered her parents and younger brother in Medicine Hat, Alberta. After the bodies were discovered on April 23rd, 2006, police feared Jasmine could also be a victim. However, she was later found alive with her 23-year-old boyfriend Jeremy Allen Steinke, whom her parents did not approve of. Steinke, who, like Jasmine, had an interest in goth culture, monsters and vampires, was also charged with the murders. On July 9, 2007, Jasmine was convicted on three counts of first-degree murder. She was sentenced to ten years in prison, the maximum penalty for a child under fourteen under the Canadian Youth Criminal Justice Act.


The Newcastle Boy Killings
In December, 1968, Mary Flora Bell, of Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, was convicted of manslaughter for the killings of two boys, three and four years old. Mary was just eleven at the time.


Evan Ramsey
On February 19th, 1997, 16-year-old Evan Ramsey committed a school shooting at his high school in Bethel, Alaska, killing two people and injuring two more. Ramsey, who grew up in foster homes and was reportedly bullied at school, is now serving two 99-year sentences.


Sixth Grader Nathaniel Brazill
On the last day of school, May 26, 2000, 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill, an honor-roll student at Lake Worth Middle School in Florida, shot his favorite teacher, Barry Gunrow in the head. Brazill, 14 at the time of his trial, faced a minimum of 25 years and a maximum of life in prison. He was sentenced to 28 years.


Amarjeet Sada and Cousins
In June, 2007, eight-year-old Amarjeet Sada of India, was arrested for allegedly killing three babies, two of them his cousins. According to police in the Begusarai district of Eastern India, Amarjeet strangled his first victim, a six-month-old cousin, and bludgeoned the head of a second cousin, also under a year old. Police say both killings were kept under wraps by the family; however, the case came to light when neighbors suspected Amarjeet in the death of their six-month-old daughter. According to Indian law, Amarjeet cannot be sentenced to death or put in prison, but he can be held in a children’s home until he is 18.


Nate Abraham
Nathaniel Abraham of Michigan was 11 years old when he shot an 18-year-old stranger with a .22-caliber rifle. On trial at 13, Abraham became the youngest American to ever be convicted of murder as an adult. Although he faced life in prison for his conviction of second-degree murder, Judge Arthur Moore of the Oakland County Circuit Court sentenced him to only seven years at a maximum-security juvenile detention center.


The Confession of an 8-year-old in Arizona
In the latest case of a suspected child killer, an 8-year-old Arizona boy is charged with killing his father, Vincent Romero, 29, and another man, Tim Romans, 39 on November 8th, 2008. Romans was renting a room in Romero's home. Police say the boy confessed during a controversial taped police interrogation, saying he shot both men twice with a .22 caliber handgun. According to the boy's defense attorney the police were accusatory early in the interview and the boy may have been scared into confessing.


Fishtown Classmate Killing
On May 30, 2003, in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, 15-year-old Justina Morley invited Jason Sweeney, 16, out on a date. Sweeney, eager to impress his new girlfriend, brought his newly cashed $500 paycheck, which he had earned working in construction with his father. The teens did not go out to dinner or see a movie, however. Instead, Justina led Jason to an isolated area, where three attacked him. Edward "Eddie" Batzig, 16, and brothers Dominic Coia, 17, and Nicolas Coia, 16, beat Jason with a hatchet, a hammer, bricks and rocks, until the boy died. Then, they took the $500 he had in his pocket and left his body behind.


 Michael Hernandez
Fourteen-year-old Michael Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder for the 2004 killing of his friend and classmate, 14-year-old Jaime Rodrigo Gough in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Hernandez told Gough that he wanted to show him something in the stall of the school bathroom. Once Gough entered the stall, Hernandez stabbed Gough several times and cut his throat. A look into Hernandez' life revealed a young man who, while he appeared normal and polite to others, harbored a fixation on violence and kept a journal in which he outlined his plans to commit mass murder.


The Bulger Boy Murder
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were ten-years-old when they abducted two-year-old James Bulger from a shopping area in Northern England in 1993. The two boys walked around with the toddler for hours before finally beating him to death and leaving him on the railroad tracks, his head covered with bricks. Thompson and Venables, were released to freedom when they were 18, after having served eight years in a juvenile facility.



Dedrick Owens
On February 29, 2000, 6-year-old first grader Dedrick Owens reportedly fired a .32-caliber semiautomatic handgun into a group of students at Buell Elementary School, near Flint, Michigan, killing classmate Kayla Renee Rolland, also six. The youngest known school shooter in history, Owens was not charged for the killing, due to a 1893 U.S. Supreme Court Ruling which states that children under 7 cannot be found guilty of felony. Jamelle James, a 19-year-old man who was living in the same house as Owens, was charged and pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter, for leaving the gun within the boy's reach. James spent 2.5 years in prison.