RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Nearly two years after a neo-Nazi leader was shot while sleeping on his sofa, his son — who was 10 at the time of the killing — went on trial Tuesday for murder.
The victim, Jeff Hall, was an out-of-work plumber who as regional leader of the National Socialist Movement headed rallies at a synagogue and a day labor site.
In opening statements in Juvenile Court, Riverside County prosecutor Michael Soccio said the now-12-year-old boy wanted to kill his father because of a history of domestic violence.
Soccio dismissed the notion that the neo-Nazi beliefs of Hall contributed to the son’s penchant for violence, as the defense maintains....
Soccio said the boy told his younger sister the day before the May 2011 killing that he planned to shoot their father and she told him not to.
The boy saw an opportunity on the evening of the killing when his father came home from a party but was locked out and had to get in the house by crawling through a window, the prosecutor said. Hall fell asleep on the couch, and the boy got a gun and shot him while standing by his shoulder, Soccio said....
Defense attorney Matthew Hardy countered in his opening that his client had grown up in an abusive and violent environment that led him to believe it was good and right to kill people who were a threat to one’s safety and the safety of one’s family.
Where did he get that idea, the U.S government?
The boy’s father taught him to shoot guns, took him to neo-Nazi rallies, and once took him to the Mexican border to teach him how to protect his country from illegal immigrants, Hardy said.
‘‘If you were going to create a monster, if you were going to create a killer, what would you do?’’ he said. ‘‘You’d put him in a house where there’s domestic violence, child abuse, racism.’’
Hardy also alleged that the boy’s stepmother, Krista McCrary, who is expected to testify, manipulated the boy into killing Hall because Hall was going to leave her for another woman. Hall sent her text messages that night telling her he would divorce her and had left a party with another woman, Hardy said.
The prosecutor said previously that the boy’s history included being expelled from school for violence at age 5. The violence included choking a teacher with a telephone cord.
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The victim, Jeff Hall, was an out-of-work plumber who as regional leader of the National Socialist Movement headed rallies at a synagogue and a day labor site.
In opening statements in Juvenile Court, Riverside County prosecutor Michael Soccio said the now-12-year-old boy wanted to kill his father because of a history of domestic violence.
Soccio dismissed the notion that the neo-Nazi beliefs of Hall contributed to the son’s penchant for violence, as the defense maintains....
Soccio said the boy told his younger sister the day before the May 2011 killing that he planned to shoot their father and she told him not to.
The boy saw an opportunity on the evening of the killing when his father came home from a party but was locked out and had to get in the house by crawling through a window, the prosecutor said. Hall fell asleep on the couch, and the boy got a gun and shot him while standing by his shoulder, Soccio said....
Defense attorney Matthew Hardy countered in his opening that his client had grown up in an abusive and violent environment that led him to believe it was good and right to kill people who were a threat to one’s safety and the safety of one’s family.
Where did he get that idea, the U.S government?
The boy’s father taught him to shoot guns, took him to neo-Nazi rallies, and once took him to the Mexican border to teach him how to protect his country from illegal immigrants, Hardy said.
‘‘If you were going to create a monster, if you were going to create a killer, what would you do?’’ he said. ‘‘You’d put him in a house where there’s domestic violence, child abuse, racism.’’
Hardy also alleged that the boy’s stepmother, Krista McCrary, who is expected to testify, manipulated the boy into killing Hall because Hall was going to leave her for another woman. Hall sent her text messages that night telling her he would divorce her and had left a party with another woman, Hardy said.
The prosecutor said previously that the boy’s history included being expelled from school for violence at age 5. The violence included choking a teacher with a telephone cord.
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"Boy charged with killing father said he was influenced by TV show" Associated Press, November 02, 2012
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A 10-year-old boy told police he figured that if he killed his neo-Nazi father, he might not get in trouble because that was what happened on a television program he had watched.
Then Hollywood is responsible for the murder.
Then Hollywood is responsible for the murder.
‘‘A bad father did something to his kids and the kid did the exact same thing I did — he shot him,’’ the boy said in a videotaped interview with detectives, the Riverside Press-Enterprise said. ‘‘He told the truth and wasn’t arrested. . . . I thought maybe the exact same thing would happen to me,’’ he said of the episode of ‘‘Criminal Minds.’’ Prosecutors played the video Wednesday during the boy’s murder trial. The defense says his stepmother manipulated him.
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"Boy convicted of killing racist father" Associated Press, January 15, 2013
"Boy convicted of killing racist father" Associated Press, January 15, 2013
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A boy who was only 10 when he fatally shot his white supremacist father was convicted Monday of second-degree murder by a judge who said the child knew what he did was wrong.
Riverside Superior Court Judge Jean Leonard weighed the severity of the crime versus whether the amount of abuse and neglect suffered by the boy, now 12, played a significant role in the slaying of 32-year-old Jeff Hall, a regional leader of the National Socialist Movement....
The boy’s stepmother told authorities that Hall had hit, kicked, and yelled at his son for being too loud or getting in the way. Hall and the boy’s biological mother had previously gone through a divorce and custody dispute in which each had accused the other of child abuse. She initially told authorities she had killed Hall but then quickly retracted her statement. She was not charged in the case.
Defense attorney Matthew Hardy said that, because of the abuse, his client learned it was acceptable to kill people who were a threat.
The boy thought if he shot his dad, the violence would end, Hardy said.
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