A nine-year-old boy from Michigan in the US has been charged with murder after shooting his mother on Monday.
Pauline Randol suffered fatal wounds when her son shot her with a rifle at her home, Sun UK reports.
Police have charged the young boy, who remains unnamed for legal reasons, with murder.
It’s alleged he previously threatened to kill an eight-year-old girl who lives nearby, Mirror UK reports.
“He told her he wanted to get a knife and stab her and watch her die, and watch her mother cry,” the young girl’s mother, Alecia Pieronski, told a news outlet.
The accused boy’s sister, Hayley Martin, said her brother isn’t a “bad kid”.
"He loved his mom. I don’t want people to think he didn’t love his mom.”
"He doesn’t know what he did. He doesn’t understand what’s going on right now at all,” she added.
"He doesn’t understand why he can’t come home or anything."
According to FOX 17, neighbours heard screaming coming from the family’s home minutes before police arrived at the scene.
"My wife and I both, when we heard that the woman was shot, we both looked at each other and said, ‘I bet it was him [the nine-year-old],' Joseph Lancaster, a local resident said.
“I have grandkids. I have one the same age and I’ve got smaller ones.
"And he [the nine-year-old] would stand in the tree line over there and point his BB gun and shoot at them.”
The boy is currently undergoing psychiatric evaluations at a state-run juvenile facility to determine his state of mind.