A 14-year-old Indiana boy who authorities say murdered his two younger siblings is “not a monster” — he was “forced” to kill them by his abusive stepfather, his distraught mom said, according to a report.
“It’s a mother’s worst nightmare to have such a precious family and then to wake up to the worst possible outcomes,” mom Christina McCartney told Fox 19 Wednesday.
The teen — who confessed to suffocating his 2-year-old half-sister and 11-month old stepbrother with a blanket and a towel in two separate killings last year — is believed to have been abused by his stepfather and told authorities he was trying to save the kids from the “hell” he was subjected to, she told the outlet.
“He witnessed [his stepfather] being mean to the babies. That he pushed them down on purpose. He would lock them up in the bedroom to try to shut them up. He painted a pretty bad picture. As a mom, that’s hard to swallow that was going on and I didn’t know,” McCartney said.
She added the teen’s stepdad, who was living with them at their rural Osgood home southeast of Indianapolis, rejected the responsibility of fatherhood and forced her teen son into killing his siblings.
“He did it under threat. He was told that if [he] didn’t do what he was being told, he would be killed and that [his stepdad] would kill me,” the mom said.
“This man destroyed many people’s lives. My son will never be the same and my kids are gone. Those were my babies. They were my life, but he still walk free. That’s not right.”
On May 1, 2017, McCartney returned home to find her beloved daughter Desiree lifeless in the arms of her teen son, who was caring for the child at the time.
“Mom, something’s wrong. She’s not breathing right,” the boy allegedly told his mom, who brought the dying girl to an area children’s hospital.
She succumbed to her injuries five days later, one month before her second birthday, but the family believed it was related to an unknown medical condition.
And on July 20 of the same year, another baby living in the home, also under the care of the teen, died from suffocation. Authorities investigated both of the deaths and learned of the teen’s involvement from family members. The teen eventually confessed to the crimes and was arrested this past August.
He told investigators he was trying to save the kids from “some sort of hell,” and when asked to elaborate on what “hell” meant, the boy told investigators “chores” and asked them if they’d seen his list of daily chores he had to complete, court filings obtained by Fox News show. He also said “he had a conversation with God about them, but he could not talk about it because he had promised God he wouldn’t tell anyone,” the filings show.
The boy’s grandmother told investigators he described the killings to her and said “he didn’t want them to be treated the way he had been.”
The uncle also spoke with investigators and said the day before the second child’s death, the teen confided in him and said his stepdad gave him a bloody nose.
The teen was being treated at a mental hospital before his arrest and is now being held at a juvenile detention center outside Cincinnati. He could be tried as an adult for the killings and will be evaluated to see if he’s competent to stand trial.
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