A video shows the child admitting shooting his father and another man, writes ASHLEY POWERSin St Johns, Arizona
NO ONE suspected the boy. Not the neighbours, to whom the eight-year-old waved while walking his boxer puppy, nor the police, who were investigating whether a workplace spat had ended in the shooting dead of his father and another man.
A tip though convinced authorities to reinterview him.
He wore pyjama pants, tucked his limbs into his body, his eyes welled up with tears - and, in the end, appeared to confess to the killings. A videotape of the questioning, at which no lawyer was present, was released and broadcast nationwide last week - confounding defence lawyers, juvenile justice experts and locals in this rural outpost near the New Mexico border.
The judge has issued a gag order, making it more difficult to sort out what happened on November 5th after the boy got off a school bus. While the police chief has said the youngster "methodically" killed his father, Vincent Romero (29), and Tim Romans (39), prosecutors on Friday asked that the murder charge related to his father be dropped.
"This town is just real sad," said Connie Grugel (57), who lives down the street from Romero's home. This was where the boy's father died on the stairs, dressed in his construction-site overalls, hard hat and protective eyewear. Romans, a co-worker who stayed with the Romeros during the week , was killed outside.
"Nobody seems to know why," Grugel said. "This child seemed okay with the world. He was a happy little guy, the kind you'd want to hug."
Vincent Romero grew up in St Johns, an expanse of ranchland with 4,000 residents. High crime here, locals say, usually involves someone stealing chickens.
In recent years, Romero seemed dedicated to raising his family and to St Johns. He fixed fences at his boyhood church and was well liked in town.
Romero had been awarded custody of his son after the boy's mother filed for divorce in 2001. He and his bride-to-be, Tiffany, whom he married in September, built a two-storey blue house with a balcony, a grill, a trampoline and a plaque that said "Romeros". The boy, said Romero's pastor, the Rev John Sauter, called Tiffany "Mom".
On the evening of the shootings, Sauter said, neighbours heard three to four "pops," with a delay between each one, according to court transcripts that have been made public. Romero's son told police he saw a white vehicle with rimless back tires speeding away.
"I saw the door [was] open, and I saw Tim right there," the boy initially told police. "And I ran and I said, 'Dad! Dad!' and I went upstairs and I saw him. And there was blood all over his face and I think I touched him.
"I just kind of checked to see if he was a little bit alive."
Romero and Romans were struck about five times each, authorities said, with a .22-calibre rifle that must be reloaded after every shot. The gun, which police found on a wire dog kennel near the front door, was the boy's.
In St Johns, families often hunt together for rabbits and squirrels. Romero had bought his son hunting videos, Sauter said, in the hopes that learning to handle a gun would teach him responsibility.
The day after the shootings, police were still chasing leads, court transcripts indicate.
Then at the funeral home, Tim Romans's widow told a sheriff's sergeant about the last time she spoke to her husband on his mobile phone, just before he was killed. A child she identified as Romero's son yelled that "something's wrong" inside the house. She heard no gunshots.
Two officers questioned the boy. After some prodding, the third-grader told them: "I think, um, I think I shot my dad because he was suffering, I think." He buried his face in his shirt.
"He said he was mad at his dad," officer Debbie Neckel testified at a detention hearing. "He said the evening before, that he didn't bring some papers home from school and his dad was very angry and had his mother, Tiffany, spank him five swats."
Sauter sat in his rectory, trying to make sense of the accusations against the boy, who made his first court appearance in shackles but is permitted to spend Thanksgiving on Thursday with his birth mother.
The boy had been having trouble with his homework. The Romeros had visited his school and had stopped him from watching television. Sauter wondered whether it was hard for the child to understand complex things. "I don't think he has the ability to distinguish right from wrong." - ( Los Angeles Times-Washington Postservice)