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By: Nathan Batoon
A 9-year-old boy, arrested in the shooting deaths of his father and another man, pled guilty Thursday to one count of negligible homicide, reported the Los Angeles Times.
Last November, the boy allegedly shot to death his father, Vincent Romero, and family friend Timothy Romans with a .22-caliber rifle at their rural home in St. Johns, Las Vegas – a town of 4,000.
Prosecutors will not charge the boy in connection with his father’s death because of the guilty plea the child entered Thursday. Before the boy is sentenced, he will undergo mental health evaluations to determine the severity of his punishment. His psychological test results will also determine whether he will be released into his mother’s custody or be detained at the Apache County juvenile justice system.
As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the boy was eager to end the court proceedings as soon as possible, signing the three-page agreement in “shaky, oversized cursive.”
The plea agreement, however, did not sit well with Romans's family.
His wife and two daughters were disappointed with the agreement, a spokesman for the family told the Associated Press.
The boy’s motives are still unclear.
In police reports, the boy implied that he was tired of getting spanked. Many residents of the community, however, said Romero and his new wife, Tiffany, were good caregivers.
The boy initially claimed that he was not at the scene at the time of the shooting, but saw a white vehicle with rimless back tires drive away. The boy’s story – which was originally treated as a witness account – was contradicted by Romans’s wife, who said, as noted by the Los Angeles Times, shortly before her husband died, she could hear the boy calling him in the background.
In the police video, where the boy appears to confess to the shooting, he said: “I think, um, I think I shot my dad because he was suffering, I think.”
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