A 15-year-old north Florida girl, with help from her 11-year-old sister, fatally shot their 16-year-old brother while their parents were out of town, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday.
The sisters were charged with premeditated murder after being accused of fatally shooting their older brother with a gun that their parents had locked up while they were away, the Associated Press reported, declining to reveal the names of the girls, their brother or the parents because of the suspects' ages.
"There's no real rhyme or reason to it," Sheriff's spokesman Murray Smith told The Gainesville Sun, adding that the children's father is a truck driver and the mother had left with him on a trip.
At 10 p.m. Monday, the sisters went to the High Springs Police Department to report that their brother was dead, according to Columbia County Sheriff's deputies. After arriving at the home in nearby White Springs in north Florida, deputies found the teen dead with a gunshot wound on the living room floor.
Earlier in the night, the 15-year-old sister had allegedly been beaten by her brother and locked inside her bedroom, she told police. When her younger sister unlocked the door, the 15-year-old managed to retrieve the gun from a room that had been locked by her parents and shoot her older brother, Fox30Jax.com reported.
Although the 11-year-old assisted in the alleged murder, "she didn't pull the trigger," Smith said.
A 3-year-old sibling, who was inside the home at the time but did not witness the incident, is now in state custody, Department of Children and Families spokesman John Harrell said, adding that state law prohibited him from releasing details of any past incidents the family might have had with the department.
Although details of the shooting remained unclear on Tuesday, the parents have been arrested and charged with child neglect and failure to supervise their children.
Meanwhile, Third Circuit State Attorney Jeff Siegmeister hasn't decided whether to charge the girls as adults, according to NBC News. Children arrested for crimes and treated as juveniles can be held in detention for a maximum of 30 days.
"Sometimes we can send them home after that, but in light of all of the facts in this case, we don't have any place to send the children," Siegmeister said. "I may be forced to actually charge them as adults to hold them in juvenile detention until I can work something out. I don't know all of the facts yet."
The parents and both sisters are scheduled to make an appearance in court on Wednesday.
