News |

California 12-year-old accused of killing sister expected to deny charges

By Laila Kearney and Ronnie Cohen

SAN FRANCISCO, May 29 (Reuters) – A 12-year-old boy accused

of stabbing his younger sister to death in a crime that

traumatized their Northern California town is due to appear in

court on Wednesday where his attorney said he would likely deny

charges of second-degree murder.

The case has drawn widespread attention because of the young

age of the suspect, who has not been publicly named because he

is a juvenile, charged with the rare crime of killing a sister.

He is scheduled to appear in Calaveras County juvenile court

in San Andreas.

The boy, who if convicted may be incarcerated only until his

23rd birthday, was once disciplined for bringing a pocket knife

to school but lived an otherwise normal life in a large blended

family, his attorney has said.

Court records show the siblings lived in a crowded household

where money was tight and the family was embroiled in custody

and child-support disputes including one involving the slain

8-year-old, Leila Fowler, and the brother accused of her

killing.

The two siblings lived with their father and his longtime

fianc (c)e in a household that included five other children ranging

in age from 1 to 19, court documents and police reports show.

The records show that the father, Barney Fowler, a boat

mechanic, was embroiled in child-support disputes with three

different women, including the mother of Leila and his

12-year-old son, the boy charged in the case.

Following the April 27 killing, police initially launched a

manhunt for an intruder who the brother said he saw before

finding his sister near death. The two were home alone.

‘VERY NORMAL BOY’

News of what was thought to be a homicidal home invasion

sent a shudder of fear through Valley Springs, southeast of

Sacramento, where many residents routinely left their doors

unlocked. Residents were advised to remain inside the next day

with doors and windows latched shut.

But two weeks later, authorities arrested the brother, and

he was charged with second-degree murder on May 15.

One of the boy’s lawyers, Mark Reichel, said his client

maintained his innocence. He confirmed the seventh-grader was

suspended for five days in January for bringing a “tiny little

Swiss Army knife” to school.

The brother was otherwise “a very normal boy in a very

normal setting with normal siblings,” Reichel said. “He got

along with other kids in the neighborhood very well.”

Family court records show the children’s mother, Priscilla

Rodriguez, was largely cut off from the pair. She could not

immediately be reached for comment.

Whether Rodriguez chose to keep her distance, as Fowler said

in court papers seeking child-support payments, or was

essentially denied access to her children by their father, as

she suggests, remains unclear. She claimed in a court

declaration last year to be indigent.

“I am homeless now,” she wrote. “When I was giving him money

last year, I was going without food myself. I am not trying to

avoid helping my children financially, but at this point I am

unable to give him anything. I am constantly looking for work to

help. I only wish to be able to speak with and see my children.”

Fowler wrote to the court a month earlier that Rodriguez had

“made no attempt to spend time or visit the children. In three

years there has been one 10-minute supervised visit.”

Fowler also characterized himself as struggling financially

in a declaration this year in a separate support case against

the mother of his 15-year-old daughter and a 19-year-old son.

Asked if he could verify Fowler’s claims of money woes,

Reichel said: “He is broke and penniless, that’s for sure.”

(Reporting by Laila Kearney and Ronnie Cohen; Writing by Steve

Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Beech)