10-year-old confesses to killing former Louisiana mayor and his daughter: police
A 10-year-old boy is in police custody after confessing to shooting a former Louisiana mayor and his daughter, police say.
Joe Cornelius Sr., 82, and Keisha Miles, 31, were found dead on Sunday morning in Minden, a small city in northern Louisiana near Shreveport. Cornelius was a longtime councilman of Minden and served as the city’s mayor for several months in 2013 after the sitting mayor died while in office.
The 10-year-old boy that allegedly confessed to the killings is related to Cornelius, according to Police Chief Jared McIver. The unnamed boy is being held on suspicion of two counts of first-degree murder.
“Our city is in shock,” McIver told NBC News. “How does a 10-year-old commit something so malicious?”
Police found the bodies of Cornelius and Miles after receiving a 911 call around 6:30 a.m. that shots had been fired. The victims were found inside a house on Austin Street with multiple gunshot wounds, local broadcaster KTBS reported. Two handguns were used and their magazines had been completely emptied, McIver told NBC.
A six-year-old child was also home at the time of the shooting, but was uninjured.
Investigators are still trying to make sense of the crime and understand the motive for the shooting. The 10-year-old allegedly provided a different account of what happened when initially questioned by police, but later confessed to the shooting on Sunday afternoon.
“We’ve got a confession. But in these cases… it’s very delicate, when you’re dealing with a child of this age,” McIver told KTBS. “We’ve still got a lot of unanswered questions.”
The boy’s grandmother is his legal guardian and has been present for law enforcement questioning, as is required by law. McIver described the boy as “scared” but not
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