10-year-old charged with criminal homicide

A 10-year-old boy charged with criminal homicide for murdering a 90-year-old woman in Pennsylvania, USA yesterday. According to prosecutors, the boy was angry at the woman; Helen Novak who was under his grandfather’s care for yelling at him and had held a cane against her throat and repeatedly punched her to death on Saturday.

The boy was being held without bail on Monday night and was charged as an adult with criminal homicide yesterday.

His attorney, Bernard Brown, said he would seek to have the boy released into his father's care at a bail hearing today.

Brown said he would also follow up with a request for a competency hearing, saying evidence gathered by prosecutors suggests the boy may have mental health issues. According to Brown, those issues could indicate he is not competent to stand trial and also may support the transfer of the case to juvenile court.

State police said the beating occurred on Saturday when the boy was visiting his grandfather's home in northeastern Pennsylvania.

The boy denied hurting the woman when he told his grandfather that the woman was "bleeding from her mouth," the prosecutor said. The grandfather checked on her, and the woman said she was OK, investigators said.

According to the police, the grandfather checked a second time and she was unresponsive and he immediately called 911. The grandfather asked the boy again "if he had done something" to the woman and the boy said he had punched her and put a cane around her neck, said Wayne County District Attorney Janine Edwards.

The boy's mother brought him into a state police barracks later that day, reporting that he had gone into the woman's room and she had yelled at him. According to the mother, the boy told her that "he got mad, lost his temper and grabbed a cane and put it around Novak's throat," police said.

The prosecutor confirmed that the woman's injuries were found to be consistent with the boy's account.

An autopsy found blunt force trauma to the woman's neck, leading to the homicide finding. The prosecutor said the crime of criminal homicide is excluded from juvenile law, requiring that the boy be charged as an adult.

"The family is obviously an emotional wreck to have their 10-year-old removed from them and to know he is in a county correctional facility charged as an adult," Brown said. His next court appearance is Oct. 22.

by Cassendra Doole

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