14-Year-Old Boy Legally Justified in Killing Drunk Mom: Attorney

Alan Cheung
By Alan Cheung
July 24, 2019US News
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14-Year-Old Boy Legally Justified in Killing Drunk Mom: Attorney
Crime scene tape with police car lights. (Geralt/Pixabay)

An attorney said a boy who was 14 when he shot and killed his drunken mother in Wichita was legally defending himself and his then-12-year-old brother.

The Wichita Eagle reported that the defense is seeking the dismissal of a voluntary manslaughter charge in the June 2018 shooting.

Attorney Dan Monnat says the older boy “acted bravely and legally” when he shot his mother after she attacked his younger brother. No one else was present.

Monnat described the death as “another instance of the rampant disease of adult alcohol abuse leading to tragic results.”

Lisa Marie Trimmell, his mother, was found shot dead on July 17, KAKE reported.

Lisa brought the boys back to the mansion from the older brother’s baseball game that night, The Wichita Eagle reported.

She and her husband, Justin Trimmell, were going through a divorce at the time and Lisa was spending time with their two sons as part of the court-ordered parenting time.

Justin had custody of the boys and moved to his mansion.

According to the attorneys’ documents, Lisa physically attacked the younger brother while drunk. “Fearing for the life of his younger brother,” the older brother shot his mother once before he called emergency services, The Eagle reported.

Deputies arrived at the 3200 block of North 159th Street East around 10:30 p.m. and pronounced the 41-year-old mother dead at the scene.

The emergency dispatcher told the police that the “mother attacked the brother and she [sic] shot her.”

Before their mother was fatally shot, a counselor had diagnosed the two brothers with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to physical and psychological abuse, the New York Post reported.

The counselor was told that PTSD would trigger whenever the mother drank.

Family Homicide in Oklahoma

In other news related to family homicide, an 8-year-old boy told the police that his mother killed his father in 2018, before showing them where the knife she allegedly used to stab the man to death was hidden.

Amber McMurtrey 34, of Del City, Oklahoma, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, The Oklahoman reported, citing arrest records.

Police arrived on the scene on Jan. 20, 2018 to find Neil Vaughn bleeding to death in his driveway from a stab wound to his chest. Despite being rushed to the hospital, the man died from his injuries.

Responding officers reportedly said McMurtrey had bloodshot eyes and smelled of alcohol when they arrived at the scene, and they said they could detect the odor of burned marijuana apparently emanating from the home.

McMurtrey was reportedly not cooperative and only told officers that the stabbing took place outside, not inside the home. Officers spotted a trail of blood inside the house and asked permission to enter and investigate, but the woman refused.

The woman was then arrested and a caseworker was contacted by police to take custody of her son, The Oklahoman reported, citing an arrest affidavit.

Police obtained a search warrant and entered the premises to find blood leading from a bedroom down a hallway to the driveway. A burned “marijuana cigarette” was also found in the home, along with drug paraphernalia.

Witnesses interviewed by police reported seeing Vaughn running outside the house before collapsing in his driveway. They also said McMurtrey claimed that she saw someone stab Vaughn and then flee.

Police were told by a witness that he had seen McMurtrey assault Vaughn “multiple times while she was intoxicated.”

The boy initially told police that a “masked person came in and stabbed my daddy and then left.” However, the child later changed his story and admitted that McMurtrey had stabbed Vaughn and hid the “reindeer knife” above the toilet, The Oklahoman reported, citing the affidavit.

Investigators discovered the knife exactly where the boy said it would be.

McMurtrey is currently in custody in Oklahoma County Jail. She is charged with first-degree murder, according to arrest records.

Epoch Times reporter Tom Ozimek and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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