CNN is reporting that a 14-year-old South Carolina boy used the rifle his father bought him as a birthday present to shoot the man to death, along with a great-aunt, and critically wounded his grandmother, police said Tuesday. The boy called police just before midnight and calmly informed them that he had shot his aunt, grandmother and father, said Tony Fisher, director of the Spartanburg, S.C., Public Safety Department. The boy said in a "methodical" voice that he had laid the rifle down and would be waiting for them when authorities arrived.
Upon their arrival, the boy came out of the house with his hands in the air. Police found the boy's 44-year-old father, Joe Robert Lankford, shot to death in his bed, and Virginia Gaston, 83, dead in her bed, apparently from a gunshot wound, Fisher said. Rachel Gaston Lankford, 80, the boy's grandmother, was transported to a hospital, where she is in critical condition.
Authorities investigating the teen's background said there were no behavioral issues in the past and that he was unable to articulate why he shot his relatives. Parents take note: Giving guns to teenagers as a present may have dire consequences. This situation is truly sad on so many levels.
Read more at CNN.
In other news: FBI Simulated Bomb Blast Takes Place in Pennsylvania.