After a confrontation over stolen reptiles with a teenager turned fatal, a man from Waupaca, Wisconsin, has been charged with intentional homicide of the first degree.
Forty-four-year-old Bill Zelenski is currently facing homicide charges after being accused of shooting an 18-year-old boy on Monday.
The name of the victim was not released for public information. However, according to reports, the victim's mother, Tiffany Powell, faces the same charge of first-degree intentional homicide for serving as a party to Zelenski's crime.
Fox News has reached out to the accused's attorney, but calls seeking comments have not been returned as of Thursday.
According to the reports, Zelenski and the teenager had an altercation about stolen reptiles, which were worth around $27,850. On Monday, the criminal complaint stated that Zelenski reached out to the authorities to identify two of the young people he claimed burglarized his house and stole his reptiles.
Zelenski noted that the stolen reptiles were valuable, including $17,000 worth of Mexican beaded lizards. He said that a group of young people entered his home and took his reptiles.
Shortly after calling in his complaint to the police, Zelenski, along with Powell, had an encounter with the latter's son, who was one of the alleged reptile thieves. The pair then confronted the boy about the stolen reptiles. The boy did not take the accusation lightly and seemed to want to fight back.
According to WLUK-TV, the confrontation between the three was mostly captured by a doorbell camera. It was stated that Powell's son even took off his shirt and wanted to fight Zelenski. After that, Zelenski took out a shotgun and pointed it at the teenager.
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At one point in the video, it was seen that Zelenski handed over the gun to the victim's mother, who then pointed the gun at her son. Powell was then seen giving the gun back to Zelenski.
However, it is still unclear whether the fatal shot was captured on camera as it was not written in the complaint.
It was also noted in the documents that Zelenski called 911 after the victim was shot and stated that he only hit the victim after the teenager attacked him.
Meanwhile, a long time friend of Zelenski, Crystal Zeske, stated that the suspect took the boy under his wing. She also added that Zelenski was very good friends with the boy's mother, Powell.
Moreover, Zeske stated that Zelenski even took the boy on jobs and worked on a tree service together. She also noted that she thought that the suspect and victim were "pretty tight" since Zelenski helped the boy get jobs. She also stated that she has observed that the two were very close, ABC News reported.
Following the death of the 18-year-old, Judge Ramond Huber of Waupaca County ordered that Zelenski be held and detained without bond. On the other hand, Powell was initially put in jail under a probation hold, but a cash bond of $500,000 was ordered.
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