Normandy teenager admits shooting family dead

ANCOURTEVILLE-SUR-HERICOURT, France, Oct 28 (AFP) – A 14-year-old boy shot dead his family in a French village after deciding during his homework that he wanted to kill, according to police and a prosecutor Thursday.

The teenager, identified as Pierre F., waited in his family’s farmhouse in northern France late Wednesday with his father’s hunting rifle before opening fire without warning on his parents and siblings as they arrived home, state prosecutor Joseph Schmidt said, citing details of the boy’s confession.

The incident late Wednesday has stunned France, Justice Minister Dominique Perben calling it “abominable”.

His father, mother, and four-year-old brother were killed. His 11-year-old sister raised the alarm at a neighbour’s house in Ancourteville-sur-Hericourt despite being shot in the chest.

“All of a sudden, I just had the idea to kill,” the boy confessed, Schmidt told journalists, adding that between shootings he watched a video of the hit cartoon film “Shrek.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this in 31 years of crime scenes,” Schmidt added.

Pierre, who had fled on his bicycle, was arrested an hour and a half later by police, who described him as being in a disturbed state.

The 200 residents in the small village were shocked and bewildered by the shootings. A former family babysitter told AFP the children were “very polite” and she had seen nothing that might explain the grisly turn of events.

“They were normal people without any problems, including the children,” the deputy mayor, Francis Leroux, told Le Parisien newspaper.

“Something must have happened in the boy’s head in a fraction of a second, because to open fire on his parents, his sister and his brother, he had to be able to go that far.”

According to Schmidt, after a Wednesday lunch together the father had gone to work, the mother had taken the four-year-old for a walk and the sister had gone swimming.

Pierre, left alone to do his homework, got his father’s rifle and went to the lounge to watch “Shrek”. After a while he loaded four cartridges into the gun.

When his mother and brother returned home he opened fire twice, killing the woman.

Pierre then led his confused brother upstairs where he gave him crayons to play with before hiding his mother’s body in the bathroom and reloading the gun.

After his sister Marion returned he shot her in the kitchen, the prosecutor said, citing the confession.

Pierre then went back to the movie but when his brother came to the top of the stairs and starting crying he shot him too.

Marion, badly wounded, made it to the bathroom where she found her mother’s body, and then to a neighbour’s house.

When the father returned home, Pierre said he shot him twice, grabbed a bag and left the house, locking the door.

After riding to a nearby village, he went to call police but when officers arrived he did not admit the crime, saying only that he had seen his father’s body near the door and had decided to flee.

However, police arrested the boy after his account revealed contradictions and, after an examination of the crime scene, Pierre confessed “with a great deal of detail” what happened, Schmidt said.

The motivation for the bloody events remains a mystery, however.

“He is incapable of giving his reasons” for the massacre and “relates it like he was an observer not involved in what he was doing,” the prosecutor said.

He added that the teenager had been placed under psychiatric evaluation to determine if he could be held criminally responsible for premeditated murder and attempted murder.

© AFP