Background: The home in Cheyenne, Wyo., where Theresa McIntosh was allegedly shot by her son on March 7 (Google Maps). Inset: Theresa McIntosh (Facebook).
A Wyoming teenager will be charged as an adult after police said he shot his mother dead using her own gun, which he took from her a week earlier during a fight over bad grades.
According to the Laramie County Sheriff's Office, the shooting took place at a Cheyenne, Wyoming, home on the afternoon of March 7. Deputies responded to the home, where they found a woman, later identified as 41-year-old Theresa McIntosh, with a gunshot wound to the back of her head. She was unconscious but still breathing and was airlifted to a hospital in Colorado. On March 8, she died of her injuries.
On March 10, the sheriff's office said a juvenile was taken into custody at the scene. This week, the boy was identified as 14-year-old Havoc Leone, who initially told deputies that his mother killed herself, but soon changed his story, police said.
In court documents obtained by local news outlet Cowboy State Daily, Leone allegedly told investigators that he shot his mother while she was on the floor doing a puzzle, firing a single shot into the back of her head. The teenager told investigators that he "was angry right before he shot McIntosh and couldn't tell her how much he hated her because she doesn't understand him," police said.
Leone allegedly told police that McIntosh called him names, and that he thought about murdering his mother "when she would make him do things he didn't want to do."
A week before the deadly shooting, Leone and his mother reportedly fought over him getting a D in math. Reacting to the argument, Leone allegedly stole his mother's Taurus 9 mm from her vehicle and had hid it in one of his boots in his bedroom.
On the day of the shooting, McIntosh and her common-law husband, who is Leone's father, fought with the teenager after suspecting him of stealing a tablet from one of his mother's cleaning clients, police said.
McIntosh allegedly called Leone a "thief" and claimed that he was mentally handicapped.
According to court documents, McIntosh ordered Leone to hand over the tablet password, which was written in a notebook in his room. Police said when he got the notebook, he also got his mother's 9 mm.
Leone allegedly told police that he threw the notebook at his mother, who was on the floor doing a puzzle. He said she continued to yell at him while she was bent down to get either the notebook or the tablet. While she was turned away from him, he told police he pointed the gun with both hands and pulled the trigger, hitting his mother in the back of the head.
Leone's father, who was in the basement playing video games while wearing noise-canceling headphones, told police that he heard a popping sound. When he went to the bedroom where he knew McIntosh was doing her puzzle, he saw Leone, who allegedly said, "I don't know, it just went off."
After Leone's father called 911, he went to render aid to McIntosh, who was "unresponsive with blood and 'brains' all over the place." While holding a towel to McIntosh's head wound, he noticed that her gun was on the floor. He told police that it was unexpected, because he knew she kept it in her vehicle.
While Leone's father was being questioned, he knew what his son allegedly did, but did not "want to think what I think happened." He later told investigators, "I understand, but I don't want to f—ing say it. Yes, I understand that it's a possibility, but I really hope it's not. It'd be a lot easier to accept that she killed herself than my son tried to kill her."
Leone was charged as an adult with first-degree murder. Local news outlet Oil City News reported that he is being held on $500,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on March 18.
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