WHITE PINE, TN — Police have an 11-year-old boy in custody after they say he shot an 11-year-old neighbor with his father’s shotgun after an argument over a puppy.
According to reports, police responding to a shooting call at a trailer park found McKayla Dyer on the ground with a single gunshot wound to the chest. She would be rushed to the hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Witnesses told police that the shooter was Dyer’s next-door-neighbor, an 11-year-old boy, who used his father’s 12-gauge shotgun from inside his home.
The fifth-grader was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in juvenile court. A detention hearing is scheduled for Monday and a judge will later determine if the boy will be charged as an adult.
Police have not releases a motive, but neighbors say that Dyer and the boy had been arguing about a puppy moments before the shooting occurred.
"Wanting to see a puppy, the little girl laughed and told him no…and that was it," said neighbor Chasity Arwood.
Sheriff Bud McCoig said the shooting happened in a neighborhood where all the children know and play together. He also said it is not known if the boy, who is the youngest of his five siblings, suffers from any mental problems.
Dyer's mother told reporters that the boy bullied her daughter in the past.
"When we first moved to White Pine, the little boy was bullying McKayla," said Latasha Dyer. "He was making fun of her, calling her names just being mean to her, I had to go the principal about him and he quit for a while and then all of a sudden yesterday he shot her."
VIDEO HERE: http://www.dreamindemon.com/2015/10/05/boy-11-accused-killing-8yearold-girl-shotgun-puppy/