A 15-year-old boy was charged with murder Thursday in the shooting deaths of his parents and three siblings at a home in Fall City, Washington, according to court documents obtained by CBS News.
The boy, whose name is being withheld because he is a juvenile, is charged with five counts of aggravated murder for the killings of his parents, Mark and Sarah Humiston, two brothers aged 9 and 13, and his 7-year-old sister. He was indicted. , according to King County court records.
The suspect is also charged with one count of attempted murder for shooting and injuring his 11-year-old sister, documents said.
The girl is in “satisfactory condition” at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Autopsies performed by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that all five victims died from gunshot wounds. The handgun used in the shooting appears to belong to the victim’s father, according to court records.
According to the indictment, the suspect called 911 just before 5 a.m. Monday at his parents’ home in Fall City, falsely claiming that his 13-year-old brother had shot his entire family and killed himself. , a community near Seattle.
However, around the same time as that call, 911 dispatchers received a second call from a neighbor who lives about 400 meters away. The neighbor said the suspect’s 11-year-old sister ran into the home and was bleeding from what appeared to be a gunshot wound, documents said.
The girl said her entire family had been shot and killed, and identified her 15-year-old brother as the gunman. The girl told the dispatcher that she too had been shot by her brother and that “he then held his breath and pretended to be dead,” the documents said. The girl later told detectives that she escaped through her bedroom window.
Officers responded to a home in Humiston, found the suspect in the driveway and took him into custody, according to court records. The bodies of five people were discovered inside the home.
When meeting with detectives at the hospital later that day, the suspect’s surviving sister said she identified the gun used in the shooting as “her father’s silver Glock handgun,” according to court documents.
The father kept the gun in a small locked box and “occasionally left it by the front door so he could take it to work,” the documents said. She told detectives that the suspect was “the only one who knew the lockbox combination on the Glock.”
Investigators determined that the suspect “systematically murdered” his parents and brother and “staged the scene before first responders arrived to make it appear that the murder was committed by his brother.” is stated in the document.
There was no speculation about a motive in court documents.
The suspect was scheduled to be arraigned Friday afternoon. The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office announced in a news release Thursday that the suspect is being held at the Clark Child and Family Justice Center, a juvenile facility.
The boy is currently being charged as a juvenile, and prosecutors said a judge will decide whether to move his case “to adult court.” But prosecutors say that even if the suspect is tried in adult court, the sentencing guidelines for juveniles are different under Washington state law, so moving the case to adult court does not necessarily mean the suspect will be tried as an adult. He pointed out that it was not a thing.
In a statement Tuesday, the public defender representing the suspect said the suspect is a “15-year-old boy who enjoys mountain biking and fishing and has no criminal history.”
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