Home > Crime > Teen Charged With The Murder Of 9-Year-Old Half-Sister Found Hanging From Tree

Teen Charged With The Murder Of 9-Year-Old Half-Sister Found Hanging From Tree

May 14, 2012 at 8:48 am by Morbid

RAGLAND, AL – Police have charged a 14-year-old with the murder of his 9-year-old half-sister who was found dead on Thursday, hanging from a tree in her family’s backyard.

Katelynn Arnold’s aunt became concerned when she did not return home from a bicycle ride around the neighborhood on Thursday and started looking for her. She did not find her with any of the friends she normally played with and returned home to find the girl in the backyard, hanged from a tree with an old tire swing rope.

Rescuers removed the girl from the tree and rushed her to the hospital where she would be pronounced dead. An autopsy would show cause of death to be ligature strangulation. Investigators would immediately call the death “very suspicious” but would not say why. That is until early the next day when they arrested Katelynn’s 14-year-old half-brother and charged him with murder.

The teen has admitted to police that he killed the girl by hanging her from the tree and has provided them with a motive that they have yet to reveal to the public. The unidentified boy currently faces juvenile charges but authorities could later decide to charge him as an adult as prosecutors did in the recent case of a 14-year-old Indiana girl who stabbed her 4-year-old cousin to death.

The siblings have lived with their aunt for years, according to neighbors, in some form of foster situation. One neighbor said he saw no signs that the boy would ever do anything like this.

“He’d run off and do crazy things, but I never believed he’d do something like that. It’s a bad situation,” the neighbor said.

Katelynn was part of the children’s choir at Hardin Chapel Baptist Church choir and was supposed to sing with the group yesterday. Instead the church remembered her with a special program dedicated to her with her uncle and sister in attendance. Katelynn’s funeral will be today at 2 p.m. at the church, where she will also be buried. Her funeral expenses have been paid by members of the community.

Tags: Alabama, Crime, Hanging, Juvenile, Katelynn Arnold, Murder

54 Comments

Comments

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JGo555

He molested her & she was gonna tell?
sherrdbw

What a horrible situation. I’m not sure how the justice system is supposed to treat a criminal that is child but commits such a terrible act.
EveryVillainIsLemons

Probably. That’s usually how these things go.
newstarshipsmell

‘”It’s a bad situation,” the neighbor said.’

Someone give this man an understatement award, stat.
JohnQknowitall

What a horrible situation… How is it decided whether a child is a juvenile or an adult in capital crimes?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7N6KYE5OZO7WNUYTTYEDVWOINE Marysa Nieves

Unbefuckinglievable…….
DangerousKindOfSnark

I was thinking the same thing, except my first thought was she was pregnant. I feel bad for the Aunt in all this. It sounds like she’s not well off and somewhere she has a shitty brother or sister who keeps having babies with a different parent and then just dumping them with her. So far I’ve counted 3 kids, the murder victim, the half brother, and the sister who will be at the church service.
I don’t really want kids (after puke day with my nephew I’ve told my biological clock to fuck off, I’m gonna stay a D.I.N.K or a T.I.N.K in my case), but I would take my nephews in heartbeat if it needed to happen.
http://truecrimereport.com iLLusionS

Agreed!
http://twitter.com/tinalib13 Tina Wech

“He’d run off and do crazy things, but I never believed he’d do something like that.”

Uh, well unfortunately he did. Isn’t hindsight always 20/20?
http://truecrimereport.com iLLusionS

I caught a piece of this on the news last week, but they weren’t giving out details. They aren’t offering a motive to the public, so if it isn’t the fact that he was abusing her in some way prior, it’s that he is still a sick lil’ fuck anyway..
CT

Ah yeah, there is crazy and then there is just plain fucked up. This is more on the just fucked side.
OutOfBubbleGum

Do you think he can turn his life around and become a Priest?
newstarshipsmell

edit: dammit, wrong thread.
Sam

That sounds more like proceeding on the same path to me.
http://twitter.com/tinalib13 Tina Wech

Well if he did molest her, he wouldn’t really turn his life around by becoming a priest right? Isn’t that what they do?
http://twitter.com/tinalib13 Tina Wech

You got that right CT. I’d really like to know what the girl did to bring out his fucked up-ness.
Parrot Toes

Well, in my world, they would just burn the little fucker to death. Slowly. Starting with his balls. While he hung from them.
Zazen

I’m kinda wondering what this neighbor’s definition of ‘crazy things’ entails. Is it normal crazy or Jeffrey Dahmer crazy?
http://twitter.com/tinalib13 Tina Wech

Now that is a good question. Had he been killing small animals and starting fires? Hmmmmm…
newstarshipsmell

Well, in Texas, they sit the kid down in Old Sparky and see if he fits.
Zazen

As rural an area as Ragland seems to be… if this kid was all emo, manliner’d be taken even more seriously than killing animals and setting fires, come to think of it.
Babydoll0630

I miss Texas, yes we had a lot of Katrina ppl preying on our cities………well, sweetie, You came to the wrong place.
Shar G’z

that seems like the most probable cause for what he did, another article also mentions that after the coroner removed her body he went upstairs and fell asleep. when police came to his crib around 3 am to arrest him he was in his room masturbating…YUCK!!!
Shar G’z

your avatar skeeves me -_-
Shar G’z

nah not all of them just the gay ones
newstarshipsmell

Better?
LuvsHorror

Where is your world?
onlyme356

That reporter looked like Zack Morris
JohnQknowitall

You are wicked.
Shar G’z

Much

From my Android phone on T-Mobile. The first nationwide 4G network.

—– Reply message —–
Parrot Toes

Unfortunately, it is only a fantasy world in my head. I have a cottage there that I visit often. It’s bliss.
LuvsHorror

Can I borrow it?
hershey

Please don’t put gays and child molesters in the same category.
Shar G’z

Priest that MOLEST
Oh I’m sorry did I offend you “Hershey”? Lighten up
From my Android phone on T-Mobile. The first nationwide 4G network.

—– Reply message —–
Shelby Burns

For some reason I kept reading the title as “Tree Charged with the Murder…”
hershey

Your first post didn’t offend me, I was just correcting you. Your second post did, however.

Lighten up?? Not when the president of the United States has the balls to stand behind a minority group of people and risk everything. The least I can do is not let misinformation be spewed over the internet.
Shar G’z

I was kidding about the first comment, gays are too sensitive. If you can take a dick u can take a joke. Done!
From my Android phone on T-Mobile. The first nationwide 4G network.

—– Reply message —–
tdavid6

I’ve often wondered that. When a neighbor says something like, “Yeah, he was weird and we stayed away from him, but we never thought he’d do anything like this”. Just where exactly is the line in the sand between crazy and murder?
Apachee

I was taught to protect your brothers and sisters if right, but not to kill them!
JonChris

are you implying that priests that molest boys are not gay?
hershey

Yes. Child molesters are not necessarily gay. In the priest cases, young boys were what was accessible to them. I concede that there could have been some gay priests, but not everyone that molested was gay. To further my point, I’ve read child molestation cases where the adult male was married with children and molested boys.
pikeman

If they are not gay, and they are not straight, what are they?

Just pedophiles, I guess, so are they neither?
pikeman

I was getting used to the dwarf-beating avatar.

I thought about using a fucked up person posted on the site because you did, but that would be starting a really bad trend.
pikeman

Why does it keep saying that at the bottom of your comments. It’s quite annoying.
http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Dean-Luke/1245322900 William Dean Luke

”Preying”? HUndreds of thousands of people displaced by a natural disaster that probably killed someone each and every one of them knew, who have nowhere to go, and are relying on the good in their fellow man to get by after the disaster are “preying” upon you? Wow. And people wonder why so many believe there’s no hope for humanity. All they need do is look at the ignorance within your post to see why.

You can keep your dusty-ass Mexico border state, your armadillo-headed mannequins, your Illuminati airport, and both Bush’s. Hot flat, and boring are not my idea of enlightening. Yours is a bg state..so is California, Alaska. So no bragging rights there…sayy..weren’t most of the Union forced into Texas when they lost the war to keep their slaves? Hmmmm…I guess they just decided to inbreed since they couldn’t beat and rape black women anymore.

I’d rather live in a civilized society. Like Denmark.
hershey

Who said they are not straight? I’m guessing the priesthood is no different than the rest of society. The majority are heterosexual, a minority are homosexual, and even fewer or asexual or bisexual. People don’t look at priests as any of these because they take a vow of celibacy, but all people have a sexual orientation whether or not they act upon it. However, pedophiles do not necessarily go along with their orientation. It’s more of what is available to them. I have not been to a Catholic church in decades, but when I was a youth, they only had alter boys. Not every parish had nuns either and some Catholic schools are divided into male and female only. I’ll admit I did not read the details of the Catholic priest molestation, but from what I saw in general reading this is what seemed to be the case. After all, if a priest was asking for a female child to come to their room that would most certainly raise eyebrows.

The only point I was attempting to make with my first post on this was that not all pedophiles who molest the same sex are gay and not all gay people are pedophiles.

Good to see your posting again, Pikeman.
Shar G’z

You must have an iPhone

From my Android phone on T-Mobile. The first nationwide 4G network.

—– Reply message —–
Shar G’z

your avatar skeeves me -_-
pikeman

Wow, of all the avatars I’ve had, I would think this would be the last one to skeeve anyone.

My Monty Python God one, I could see.
pikeman

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQZnsSappvdjraiivy9auFs6g4EnR61NL1o7VyFt4CQ0kRZj9anWg

Now that’s skeevy
madison697

they need to lock this little shit up forever.
JonChris

here is a little wake up call for ya, if you enjoy having sex with the same sex then you are gay no matter how hard you try to hide it. If you enjoy having sex with minors of the same sex then you are a gay pedophile. It is just that simple and it does not matter what your opinion is, it does not change the facts.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HGDQRCK5JYKU4C753DOC2HCUHM Deb

I’m with hershey on this one. Shar, that’s not something you joke about.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HGDQRCK5JYKU4C753DOC2HCUHM Deb

Wake up call to you JonChris, sexual assault is about control and power over someone else. It has nothing to do with their sexual orientation.