A 10-year-old boy has allegedly revealed himself to be the killer of a man found fatally shot in his trailer in an RV park in Gonzales County in 2022.
In a press release on Thursday, Gonzales County Sheriff’s Office announced the boy’s alleged confession. The details the boy provided and the subsequent forensic testing of the weapon he reportedly used confirmed the boy’s account.
The unnamed child allegedly had no motive for the murder. He reportedly had only seen the victim, 32-year-old Brandon O’Quinn Rasberry, walking around the Lazy J RV Park in Nixon, Texas, earlier in the day on January 16, 2022, when the boy was visiting his grandfather, who lived in the same park.
The boy came to the attention of authorities two years later, on April 12, after he allegedly made a death threat against another elementary student in Nixon-Smiley CISD the day before. A deputy was dispatched to the school and learned that the child had told school officials that he had killed someone two years prior, per the release.
The Criminal Investigation Division deemed it necessary to transport the child to a child advocacy center for a forensic interview, during which time the boy allegedly confessed to the 2022 murder.
The boy allegedly confessed to having taken a “dirt and army green” 9-millimeter pistol from the glove box of his grandfather’s truck, entered Rasberry’s RV, and shot the man in the head while the victim slept. Before exiting and returning the weapon to the glove box, the child claimed that he fired the pistol once more into the victim’s couch.
The pistol, which had been pawned to a shop in Seguin, was recovered, and its ballistics were compared to two spent shell casings found at the scene of Rasberry’s murder, yielding a match, per the release.
The boy was placed on a 72-hour emergency detention at a San Antonio psychiatric hospital and then booked in Gonzales County Juvenile Probation on terroristic threat charges, which stem from the earlier incident involving the elementary student. A letter addressed to Nixon-Smiley CISD parents informed them that “the student will not return to the elementary campus.”
The child cannot be prosecuted for Rasberry’s murder since criminal culpability in Texas does not begin until the age of 10.
Rasberry, whose absence from work for two days had led to the discovery of his body, had moved into the RV park a few days before his murder. His father, Kenneth Rasberry, expressed disbelief upon the news of a 10-year-old emerging as the possible culprit.
“I was shocked, very shocked,” the father told KSAT. “This isn’t anywhere the suspect that we thought it was.”
“He needs to be prayed on. He needs to be comforted,” the father went on to say about the boy who reportedly murdered his son. “He’s forgiven. And he can still be saved. He’s so young. He’s definitely tormented by something.”
According to the City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard, there have been 63 murders in Dallas this year as of April 19. Last year, there was a roughly 15% increase in criminal homicides compared to 2022 as Dallas continues to suffer from a significant police shortage.
City officials only allocated $654 million for the Dallas Police Department this fiscal year, opting to spend much less taxpayer money on public safety than other high-crime cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.
DPD has been understaffed for years, keeping only around 3,000 officers in the field even though a City report previously advised a force of roughly 4,000 is necessary to adequately meet public safety needs and reduce lengthy police response times.
