A 14-year-old boy, Tyrone Harvin, has been arrested in connection with the assault, sexual assault and killing of an 83-year-old woman.
Harvin has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder, first-degree rape and various sex offense and assault charges.
The incident happened in Baltimore, US and police said it found the victim, Dorothy Mae Neal, unresponsive in her apartment.
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“I went back and was just making sure it wasn’t a typo that when he was in fact 14 and just recently had a birthday,” Baltimore police media relations Chief T.J. Smith said.
“Many of us were probably thinking younger person, but I don’t think anyone was thinking a 14-year-old could be capable of something like this.”
According to police, a concerned neighbour called police August 29, saying they hadn’t seen Neal in a while.
When officers went to Neal’s apartment in the 2300 block of Winchester Street, they found her unresponsive. She had been badly beaten and sexually assaulted. She died the next morning.
Police said they found physical evidence at the scene that linked Harvin to the crime. Harvin lives in the building next door.
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The suspect’s mother spoke out Friday.
The woman, who would not identify herself but said she was the boy’s mother, spoke through tears outside of the suspect’s apartment in west Baltimore.
“I’m torn on the inside that they’re accusing my 14-year-old of some type of murder like this,” she said.
“He wouldn’t do that to an elderly, no. He would not. I’m just hurting, I’m torn on the inside,” said Harvin’s mother.
She said she spoke to her son, who’s in jail, by phone Friday afternoon.
“He’s saying, ‘Mommy, I didn’t do it.’ He said he didn’t do it and I believe what my son say,” she said.
Standing outside her west Baltimore apartment, she hung on to her husband, Harvin’s stepfather, for comfort.
“For your 14-year-old to be accused of something of that magnitude, it hurts. It hurts,” said the husband.
“I want the police to understand, the 14-year-old, what y’all said about him, he is not like that. My son has a sweet soul for people. He’s not going to sit up there and hurt nobody’s grandmother or grandfather. It just don’t make sense, it really don’t,” said the mother.
Harvin does have a juvenile record that includes armed robbery back in December when he was 13 years old.
Police say they used physical evidence to link Harvin to Neal’s murder.
