Child admits to unsolved murder of Texas man
NIXON, Texas (NBC, KYMA/KECY) - An unsolved murder in Nixon, Texas two years ago has apparently come to a very unexpected conclusion.
32-year-old Brandon Raspberry was shot in the head while sleeping. Now, there is news of an arrest and confession his family has been waiting for, but the shooter turned out to be a seven-year-old boy.
"Rare that we see a child this young engage in criminal activity this severe," said Joseph Hoelscher, an attorney.
Raspberry's family had been posting about the case, looking for answers, as recently as this week. Who would want him dead? It didn't make sense.
He'd been working at the Holmes Foods plant in Nixon, and in January of 2022, he moved into the Lazy J RV Park. Just one day later, he'd be murdered.
The break in the case came last Friday when the Gonzales County Sheriff's Office (GCSO) got a call from the Nixon-Smiley Independent School District saying a 10-year-old student had threatened to kill another student on the bus.
When deputies got there, they learned the boy also claimed he'd shot and killed a man two years ago. The boy said he did not know Raspberry, and wasn't mad at him. Raspberry just happened to live at the same RV park his grandpa did a few lots over.
Petition
The boy also told deputies he grabbed a nine-millimeter pistol from his grandfather's truck, walked inside Raspberry's RV and shot him once in the head while he slept in his bed.
Investigators found the grandfather's gun at a pawn shop in Seguin and, based on forensics, determined it to be the murder weapon.
However, the boy will not be facing murder charges. He was one week shy of his eighth birthday at the time, and under Texas law, a child does not have criminal culpability until they reach the age of ten.
"The reason in Texas, children don't have criminal culpability until the age of ten is just because kids at that age really don't know what they are doing. They can't form the proper criminal intent, and even if they do, we're hoping there's something else we can do better than incarceration to help a child that's troubled at that age, but this is incredibly rare.
Joseph Hoelscher, Attorney
Friends and family of Raspberry are now circulating this petition to amend that law, calling for legislation that "balances the need for juvenile rehabilitation while ensuring justice is served for victims and their families."
GCSO says the boy was placed on a 72-hour emergency detention, taken to a psychiatric hospital in San Antonio for evaluation and treatment, and then brought back to GCSO, where the now-10-year-old was booked on a terroristic threat charge related to that school bus incident.
He was also placed in detention by juvenile probation while he waits for a court date.
