Ariz. Boy Charged With Murder Of Father

An 8-year-old boy accused in the shooting deaths of his father and another man said in a police interview released Tuesday that he did not fire the first shots at the men but later shot them so they wouldn't suffer.

The boy gives conflicting accounts of the shootings during an hourlong video of his interview with authorities in St. Johns, but the video ends with him admitting to pulling the trigger. He then buries his head in his jacket.

"I'm going to go to juvie," the boy says after an officer asks what he's thinking.

The roughly 12-minute video posted Monday night on Phoenix television station KTVK's Web site shows part of the questioning the boy underwent as authorities in the eastern Arizona community of St. Johns investigated the Nov. 5 killings. The station said it got the video from the prosecutor's office in Apache County, where the shootings occurred.

"There was blood all over his face, I think," the boy said in the video, referring to his father. "And I think I touched him."

The boy has been charged in juvenile court with two counts of murder in the deaths of his father, Vincent Romero, and Timothy Romans, who rented a room there and was Romero's co-worker.

A defense attorney has said police overreached in their questioning of the boy, who was not represented by a family member or lawyer during the interview.

"I think they're going to have a problem getting that statement into court," defense attorney Benjamin Brewer said earlier this month before a judge issued a gag order in the case. "I believe there were many violations in regards to how it was obtained."

The gag order does not extend to the release of reports or recordings that would be considered public records in Arizona.

The shootings occurred Nov. 5 in an eastern Arizona community about 170 miles northeast of Phoenix.

The boy is due in court Wednesday for a hearing. He is being held in a juvenile jail.