BURLINGTON, Colo. (AP) – A 13-year-old boy who prosecutors say was playing with toy trucks and planes right before he shot and killed his parents was sentenced to seven years in juvenile detention on Wednesday after pleading guilty to murder.
The boy was 12 in March when prosecutors say he shot Marilyn and Charles Long with a .357 Magnum revolver in Burlington, a small farming community about 140 miles east of Denver. He also pleaded guilty to attempt to commit first-degree murder and three counts of assault for attacking two of his younger siblings.
He could have faced decades in prison if he had been tried and convicted an adult.
The light sentence angered some relatives, but District Attorney Bob Watson said state law forced him to choose between what he saw as an unacceptably light juvenile sentence and an unnecessarily harsh lifetime sentence.
Watson told a judge there was no explanation for the slayings and showed photographs of the family’s backyard where he said the boy had been playing with toy trucks and planes minutes before the shootings. He said tests showed that he was immature and noted that money he earned cleaning the courthouse before the slayings had been spent on Legos.