MEMPHIS – A 14-year-old boy has been charged with intentionally setting a house fire outside Memphis on Friday that killed his mother.
WMC-TV is reporting that the teen told detectives that he set the house ablaze after getting into a disagreement with his mother.
The boy has not been identified and has been charged with first-degree murder and aggravated arson. Firefighters responded to the blaze just after 6 a.m. Officials say the staircase had been torched, trapping the mother upstairs. Firefighters found 45-year-old Gwendolyn Wallace dead inside after extinguishing the blaze. She was a postal worker.
Early reports indicated that the boy’s father had left for work before the fire.
Officials did not say what the disagreement was about.