The Braselton teenager accused of killing her mother with a point-blank gunshot to the back of the head gave investigators three differing accounts of what happened, a police officer testified Friday.
The 15-year-old initially claimed the gun went off at the family's home April 6 while her mother, Army 1st Sgt. Karen Moore, was teaching her to shoot, said Assistant Chief Lou Solis of the Braselton Police Department. Solis was the sole witness to testify at the girl's probable cause hearing in Gwinnett County.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is not naming the teenager because prosecutors have not decided whether to prosecute her as a juvenile or an adult.
When Solis pressed the teen about why she stood behind her mother to practice firing a weapon, the story changed. She said she argued with her mother that night over schoolwork and a 17-year-old boyfriend. Then, the girl said, she retrieved a handgun hidden in her room and shot Moore. Still skeptical, Solis said he coaxed the girl to come clean by telling her "your father said you'd tell the truth."
In the final account, she made no mention of an argument. Instead, the girl told police that she grabbed the gun from her room, went downstairs and placed it next to the couch. She paced back and forth and kept asking her mother "what time is it?" Solis testified. Upon realizing it was getting late, Solis said she told him, the girl picked up the gun, shot her mom and left to pick up her boyfriend at 10:30 p.m.
Defense attorney Lucas Harsh said the teen's boyfriend had given her a deadline: "Come get me by then or I'm breaking up with you."
The 15-year-old sat quietly at the defense table, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit. A veil of bangs was combed so low over her eyes, it masked any expression. A few benches away sat her stepfather, an Army sergeant major in a dress uniform. Police have said the stepfather and a brother, who is also in the military, were stationed in Alabama at the time of the shooting.
The stepfather leaned forward intently to hear testimony with his hands folded, a gold and diamond wedding band still glinting on his left hand. He declined to talk to reporters.
Police said that after the 15-year-old left the house and picked up her boyfriend, Christopher Nieves, the pair claimed they got lost for three hours. They did not return to Moore's home until about 2 a.m.
They went to her bedroom, watched television, had sex and went to sleep, Solis said. The following morning they tried to leave, but the 15-year-old's car wouldn't start. They walked instead to a nearby pizza place. When they returned, they again tried starting the car. They asked several neighbors for help jump-starting it, to no avail, Solis said.
Finally, Nieves told a female neighbor that the teenager's mother would not wake up. The neighbor found Moore slumped over on the couch and called 911.
Murder is one of "seven deadly sins" for which minors over 13 years old can be prosecuted as adults in Georgia. However, Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said he could transfer the case to juvenile court. Nieves is not charged in connection with the murder, but he faces one count of statutory rape for allegedly having sex with a minor.
Chief Magistrate Court Judge George Hutchinson bound over the charges against Moore's daughter to Superior Court on Friday. Porter said he will read the police reports and get the family's input before deciding whether to prosecute the 15-year-old as an adult. He would also like to see a psychiatric evaluation.
"My primary concern is, do I have to worry about this happening again if she is ever put in a stressful situation?" Porter said.
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