In Cheyenne, Wyoming, a 14-year-old boy named Havoc Leone allegedly shot and killed his mother execution-style after a fierce argument over stealing a tablet from his mother’s client. Leone waited until his mother bent down and then shot her in the back of the head. He has since been arrested and faces an aggravated first-degree murder charge, for which he will be tried as an adult.
According to the New York Post, Leone, age 14, had a prior record of stealing electronic devices. Before the incident, his parents were arguing over him taking his mother’s client’s tablet. Leone told police that during the argument, his mother, Theresa McIntosh, called him “crazy” and a “thief,” which infuriated him.
Leone further admitted that in the past, whenever his mother asked him to do something he didn't want to do, he had thoughts of killing her more than once.
On the day of the incident, around 11:30am on the 7th, McIntosh was in her son’s room doing a puzzle and supervising him as he completed his homework. The two argued again, this time over the password for the tablet, and McIntosh demanded Leone hand over his notebook containing the password.
Leone casually threw the notebook on the ground, and as his mother bent down to pick it up, he took out a black Taurus 9mm handgun hidden in the room and shot her at close range in the back of the head.
At the time, Leone’s father was in the basement playing video games. Wearing noise-cancelling headphones, he heard a “bang” but thought it was a balloon popping and didn’t check.
It was not until an hour later, when the father came upstairs, that he noticed something was wrong. Leone was standing calmly outside the bedroom, claiming he didn’t know what had happened and only saying that the gun “just went off.” The father immediately performed first aid on McIntosh, who was lying in a pool of blood, and called the police. Despite being rushed to a local hospital and transferred to a hospital in Colorado, McIntosh succumbed to her injuries.
Medical staff determined that the wound behind McIntosh’s right ear was not consistent with the typical “contact wound” seen in suicides, and the gun at the scene, which was usually stored unloaded in the car, must have been deliberately retrieved and loaded. Leone later changed his statement and admitted he had stolen the gun from the car after being scolded for his math grades.
Heartbroken, the father told law enforcement: “I don't even want to say out loud what happened. For a father, this is just too crazy.” He painfully added: “It would be easier to accept her suicide than to accept that my son tried to kill her.”
The court has set Leone’s bail at $500,000 (about 1.96 million ringgit), and the trial is ongoing.