10-YEAR-OLD CONFESSES TO MURDER OF MAN FORMERLY FROM BRENHAM

  

The Gonzales County Sheriff’s Office says a 10-year-old boy has admitted to the killing of a former Brenham resident two years ago.

In a release on Thursday, the sheriff’s office reported that the child confessed on April 12^th to shooting 32-year-old Brandon O’Quinn Rasberry at the Lazy J RV Park in Nixon in January 2022.  The confession, according to the sheriff’s office, was made as the sheriff’s office and Nixon-Smiley CISD investigated claims that the child had threatened to assault and kill another student on a school bus.

At the time of his death, Rasberry had been working for Holmes Foods in Nixon for about three months, and he had moved to the RV Park four days before he was found deceased.  Brenham ISD officials said he attended Brenham High School from 2006-07 as a freshman and sophomore.

The sheriff’s office said the child, who was a week away from his 8^th birthday at the time of the shooting, “described in detail” the events involved.  The boy said he was visiting his grandfather, who lived in the same RV park as Rasberry, and that he took a 9mm pistol from the glove box of his grandfather’s truck.

According to investigators, the boy said he entered the RV belonging to Rasberry, who was sleeping in his bed, and shot him once in the head.  As he left, he told authorities that the fired the pistol another time into the couch inside the RV before leaving and putting the gun back into the glove box of the truck. 

The child said that while he had seen Rasberry walking around the RV, he had never met him, and that Rasberry did not do anything to provoke him. 

The boy also said that the firearm used during the incident was pawned by his grandfather.  Investigators secured the firearm on April 12^th at a pawn shop in Seguin, and on April 17^th they sent off two shell casings that were collected from the scene for forensic analysis.  They were able to confirm that the firearm seized was the one used to commit the act.

The child was placed on a 72-hour emergency detention and taken to a psychiatric hospital in San Antonio.  After being released, he was transported to the Gonzales County Sheriff’s Office, where he was booked in for Terroristic Threat in relation to the school bus incident and placed in detention by Gonzales County Juvenile Probation.

Texas state law says that a person may not be prosecuted or convicted for an offense committed before the age of 10.  The sheriff’s office said that since the child was 7 at the time, the Gonzales County Attorney’s Office will not consider murder charges.