STORM2K

It happened in the Dallas,TX area. Apparently,the girl and her mother had repeated arguments.Mostly over boys.The girl took a gun,and shot her mother in the face while she was sleeping.

Oh my,what the world is coming to.

OMG! That is just terrible.

Makes me wonder how she knew where the gun was and how she knew how to use it in the first place...

I got the full story right here:

DAN RONAN / WFAA ABC 8 wrote:Dallas 12-year-old held in mother's shooting

Neighbors say at this home it was not uncommon, like many households, for daughters and mothers to argue. Most of the time it was about boys and who she hung out with. But they never believed it would it end in murder.

A single gunshot blast at 1 a.m. shook the quiet in the 4600 block of Colonial Avenue.

The mother, 48-year-old Elvira Walton, a 12-year-old daughter now in custody and a 10-year-old son lived inside an old garage that had been converted to a crowded apartment.

Early Sunday, as the mother slept, police say the daughter took a gun that was in the house and shot her mother in the head.

"We did find evidence that she had been planning this murder for some time now," says Dallas Sgt. Gary Kirkpatrick.

The gunshot jolted the boy out of bed, and he called 911. After several hours, police say the girl admitted shooting her mother.

Police and neighbors say it was not a happy family. The three lived in poverty, and there were frequent arguments.

"When her momma, she used to be asleep, she'd ease out all the time at night and on that sidewalk and look down, down the street and see some boys come out, she's take off and go down there," says neighbor Donald Ricks.

Sgt. Gary Kirkpatrick says, "We believe that the last incident that caused this was over being grounded."

Neighbors say the mother was trying to hold the family together despite the difficult circumstances. Police say this was not the first time there was trouble for the family.

In May 2001, during a custody dispute, the children's father kidnapped the two children and and fled out of state.

The family never recovered from that crisis. Now it has an even larger one.

"She took care of her kids and everything. And it is just sad, what done happened to this lady," says neighbor Lashonda Washington.

The ten year old boy is being cared for by relatives. Police say since the girl is only 12, she likely cannot be charged as an adult. Instead, she will be in the juvenile justice system.

How could she do it? I don't understand what drives people to violence against their parents?

Something must have been f-ed up about the family

Her mother only looking out for her daughter's best interests.

I'm very surprised a firearm was so easily accessible to begin with!

Eric

I don't think any of us understand that kinda violence either..

All I know is.. the 12 year old somehow had easy access to the weapon.. That's evidently the mom's fault even if she was the victim

canegrl04 wrote:Something must have been f-ed up about the family

You're right about that.

TexasStooge wrote:

canegrl04 wrote:Something must have been f-ed up about the family

You're right about that.

Not knowing all the circumstances, and never having had to live in any conditions near poverty(most of us), it is very difficult for most if any of us to understand this. Most of us "older" folks have had to deal with/are dealing with our teenage children. The big question to me is how does it get so far that it comes to this? We had some ruough times with both of ours as teens, but we never approached a level like this. Were drugs involved? What outside influences were involved we know nothing about? I could go on and on. None of it makes what happened any more acceptable, but hopefully we can examine our selves(and for that matter friends, neighbors, schoolmates, etc.) when we see something like this and ask, "what can I do to keep this from happening again?".

Here's another update on this tragic story.

Police: Girl planned slaying of mother

12-year-old might have brought friends to see body before 911 call

By TANYA EISERER, MICHAEL GRABELL and MICHAEL E. YOUNG / The Dallas Morning News

The young girl accused of shooting and killing her sleeping mother early Sunday carefully planned the crime, Dallas police say, and apparently brought friends to see the body before allowing her little brother to call 911.

"She's not your average 12-year-old," said Sgt. Gary Kirkpatrick of the homicide unit.

But then, her life was far from typical.

The girl, whose name has not been released because of her age, has been charged with murder and was being held at Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center.

Her 10-year-old brother's call to police about 1 a.m. Sunday came only after the girl's plan played out, several neighbors said.

One, a 15-year-old friend whose name is being withheld because his parents couldn't be contacted, saw the girl minutes after the shooting.

"She came down the street crying," he said. "She said [her mother] had hit her in the head and that she shot her mom while she was in bed.

"She's not a bad person, not around me," the boy said. "She didn't say nothing about planning to do this, but she said her mom would hit her."

An acquaintance, who did not want her name used because she feared for her safety, said the 15-year-old said the girl took him back to her house – a converted one-car garage – to see 48-year-old Elvira Marion Walton's body. She'd been shot below the left eye, the boy told her, a fact police confirmed. The weapon was a rifle the family kept for protection.

"After she shot her, she packed her and her brother's clothes," said the acquaintance, a woman who added that the girl woke her younger brother and led him to a friend's house nearby.

Police couldn't confirm that the girl returned to the murder scene, but, "We're definitely considering that possibility," Sgt. Kirkpatrick said.

Sneaking out of house

The woman said Ms. Walton had constant problems with her daughter sneaking from the house to visit her boyfriend.

"She liked the older boys," the woman said of the 12-year-old. "She would always sneak out of the house to go down there."

She added that she didn't believe Ms. Walton abused her daughter. She remembered that Ms. Walton was mad at one of her older daughters who suggested that she'd come by and spank her sister for skipping school.

The 12-year-old "was getting out of hand, doing what she wanted to do," the woman said, while Ms. Walton "seemed like a loving mother to me."

Police also questioned the girl's story of being hit hard enough to lose consciousness.

"There were no visible marks or indications of abuse," Sgt. Kirkpatrick said.

But there's no doubt the girl grew up in a troubled home.

Records from Ms. Walton's divorce case with the girl's father, Robert Walton, depict a stormy marriage marked by allegations of abuse, adultery and child molestation. That divorce was pending when Ms. Walton died.

Ms. Walton's daughter from an earlier relationship signed an affidavit in February 2001 stating that Mr. Walton sexually assaulted her when she was "5 or 6." She never told her mother, she said, because she was afraid.

Ms. Walton accused her husband of assaulting her once or twice a week and said he had had numerous affairs with men since the couple's marriage in July 1984 after they met a few years earlier while he was serving in the U.S. Army in Germany. She said he threatened to send her back to Germany if she told police.

Ms. Walton had said her husband had been hospitalized for bipolar disorder, which he confirmed.

Mr. Walton, now living as a transsexual, acknowledged Monday that he had had extramarital affairs with men while married but said his wife had had affairs, too. He said Ms. Walton was working as a prostitute when they met.

The pair separated in January 1998, and in August 2000, Mr. Walton took their daughter and son – he says with permission from police – and eventually brought them to his hometown, Washington, D.C.

"I was the one that had them in school," he said. "I had them in Boy Scouts. I had them in Girl Scouts. I had them in church. I had them in after-school activities. I had them in soccer.

"I was being the mom and the dad, the aunt and the uncle, the grandpa and the grandma, the niece and nephew all in one," Mr. Walton said.

Mr. Walton said he was arrested for interfering with child custody after taking the children, jailed for several months and barred from seeing them for three years.

10-year-old with sister

The couple's 10-year-old son is now being cared for by one of his three adult sisters. Child Protective Services declined to comment on whether they've investigated the family.

Mr. Walton filed for divorce on Jan. 25, 2001, and two months later, Ms. Walton was granted custody of the children. Mr. Walton was ordered to pay $193.75 a month in child support.

Last month, the Texas attorney general filed charges against Mr. Walton for failing to make those payments. Mr. Walton said he is unable to pay because he can't get a job because of his disorder. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 28.

Mr. Walton denied the allegations in the divorce records, saying his wife lied to get the children back.

'She's lying'

"She's lying, she's lying, she's lying," he said.

He also denied his stepdaughter's sexual-assault allegation.

"She's not telling the truth," he said. "In 1989, I was running up and down the highway, cleaning 18-wheeler trucks. I was barely even home."

Could all of that help lead to Sunday morning's shooting? The police investigation will continue, Sgt. Kirkpatrick said, but the cause could be little more than a young girl angry that her mother had grounded her.

"She appeared to be out of control," Sgt. Kirkpatrick said. "Obviously the mother seemed to be having trouble with her."

Staff writer Jason Trahan contributed to this report.

How tragic. Her daughter sneaked out of the house? Can you spell DEAD BOLT?
This child obviously has some serious problems. I hope she doesnt get a lawyer who lays the burden on someone else and gets her out of any culpability. She needs help but she needs to be held accountable too.

Is there possibly such a thing as a child just born bad?

God, I don't know if a child can be born bad, but mental illness could be the root of such a situation.
It's horrible to think that it could happen to anyone, regardless of financial or social position.

Just plain tragic. Preventable?- I don't know, I kind of doubt it.