10-year-old boy kills mum after she refuses to buy him VR headset

The following report contains details that some readers may find distressing.

A 10-year-old boy has reportedly shot and killed his mother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after she refused to buy him a virtual reality headset.

As reported by Sky News, the incident took place just before 7am on 21 November. The boy allegedly told police that the shooting was an accident before later admitting that he intentionally aimed the gun at his mother. He then supposedly tried shooting a wall to “scare her” but his mother walked in front of the shot.

According to the boy’s aunt and sister, he logged into his mother’s Amazon account the morning after her death to order an Oculus virtual reality headset. He was said to show no remorse.

The gun had supposedly been found by the boy in his mother’s bedroom. According to local paper Journal Sentinel, the boy then took the gun down to the basement where his mother was doing laundry. Milwaukee Police reported that the boy was “playing” with the gun when it fired and fatally wounded his mother. The boy was also said to have sought out the gun because he’d been woken up 30 minutes earlier that day.

The boy has since been charged as an adult with first-degree reckless homicide and currently resides in a juvenile detention centre. Sky News reports that Wisconsin state law requires children as young as 10 to be charged as adults for serious crimes. That being said, lawyers can request that cases are moved to a juvenile court.

Angela Cunningham, a lawyer to the boy, said, “This is an absolute family tragedy. I don’t think anybody would deny or disagree with that … the adult system is absolutely ill-equipped to address the needs of a 10-year-old child.”

The boy’s family reportedly told police that he had a history of “disturbing behaviour,” including swinging a puppy around by its tail when he was four, and filling a balloon with flammable liquid that later exploded and burnt both furniture and carpet.

Allegedly, the boy also attacked his seven-year-old cousin on the day of the attack, and has reported hearing imaginary voices talking to him.