Michigan Teen Kills Mother After Argument Over Keeping A Puppy

A 19-year-old Michigan teen is facing charges for fatally shooting his mother as she slept, hours after the two had an argument over keeping a puppy he had brought home a few weeks earlier, police said Monday.

Andrew David Willson was arraigned Monday in 55th District Court on one count each of murder and felony firearm possession after he allegedly gunned down his 51-year-old mother, the Lansing State Journal reported.

Police said Willson called 911 on Friday around 7 a.m. EDT and informed that he had come home from a drive and found his mother had been murdered at their Wheatfield Township residence. Lisa Marie Willson was found dead in a bedroom in the 200 block of Linn Road near Williamston, police said. Police found she was shot in the back of her head once.

Upon reaching the scene, investigators determined that no one else had been in the house on the night of the murder except Lisa and her son. Ingham County Sheriff's detective Charles Buckland testified in a hearing that led to charges being issued against the teen, according to Lansing State Journal.

During the hearing, magistrate Mark Blumer denied a bond for Willson. The teen has been in custody since Friday.

Buckland said that Willson's mother told him Thursday evening that the puppy would have to live at his father’s house in Dansville, Michigan, and not hers. The teen admitted to the police that he took out a .22 magnum rifle from a locked cabinet at night and then went into his mother's room and fatally shot her in the back of her head while she was sleeping. Willson then drove around for some time in order to get rid of the weapon, however, police recovered the firearm later.

A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 28 and police said Willson has no criminal history.

Similar incidents of teenagers killing their mothers have been common in the United States. In July, an Illinois teen allegedly killed her deaf mother and then tried to set her house ablaze, along with her friend, in order to destroy the evidence. Anna Schroeder, 15, waited with a 0.38 revolver for her mother Peggy to return home from work in Morrison, Illinois. Anna then asked Peggy, 53, cover her face with a towel, before Anna shot her to death in the head in their living room, reports said. The motive of the murder was not clearly mentioned in the reports.

The teen then texted her friend Rachel Helm, 15, to talk about the crime and also sent her a picture of her mother's body. Detective David Molina, the sheriff who was said to have interviewed both the girls, said that the duo tried to cover up the crime and cleaned blood out of the carpet and moved the body to the bedroom floor and covered it with a bedsheet.

The following day they brought more cleaning products and prepared to run away. They also set the house on fire to destroy evidence and hid Anna's gun and phone in a nearby cemetery. The teen was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, concealment of homicidal death and arson, People magazine reported.

Another incident was reported in July when a Maryland boy allegedly killed his mother with a hammer and faced charges of murder and one count each of assault and use of a dangerous weapon with intent to injure.