5-Year-Old Beaten to Death By Teenager With Bowling Ball in Texas
A Texas teen pleaded guilty to the murder of a 5-year-old with a bowling ball Wednesday morning and was sentenced to 23 years behind bars. The 14-year-old from East Forth Worth was upset because the young child had "pestered" him to go to the store, so he brutally struck him with the heavy object "like a football player spiking a football" in June, he said.
The Texas teen's atrocious crime was against young Sida Osman, a refugee of Somalia who had moved along with his mother to escape the violence. At the time of the attack, the unnamed boy was 13, and claimed Sida kept asking him to accompany him to the store. The teen became frustrated and threw the 14-pound ball at the child, striking him; he then straddled the injured 5-year-old and smashed the ball into his head repeatedly, fatally crushing his skull.
Worse, when the teenager showed his three friends the body and they pleaded with him to call an ambulance, he refused. 18 hours after the child was reported missing, the boy lied to Sida's mother, who asked him if he had seen her child.
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After pleading guilty in the courtroom to the horrific murder, the teen apologized to the Osman family, according to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
"I just want the family to know I'm sorry," he said.
The Somalian families who formed the tight-knit community burst into tears when the teen's crime was described.
"There were tears all over that courtroom," said Assistant District Attorney Riley Shaw, who was part of the prosecution team. "They were real tears from real people. This is a horrific, horrific case."
The teen's defense attorney, Ray Hall, Jr., revealed that the boy suffered from mental issues so severe that his mother had him institutionalized many times.
"They keep him a week and then let him back out," he said. "[His mother] feels like she's made an effort to get him help but it kind of falls on deaf ears."
The teen will most likely stay in the juvenile justice system until he is 19, and then he'll be transferred to an adult prison. Parole is unlikely, according to reports.
"A part of our family is missing," Sida's mother said through a translator. "We miss him every day. Why did he kill him? He's only five years old."
Dallas News | myFOXdfw.com
