14-year-old US boy 'hires' classmate to murder his own family, arrested

Washington: A 14-year-old boy in the US has been arrested and charged with soliciting murder after he wrote a contract "hiring" his classmate as a hitman for USD 1,200 to kill his family, staging it as a burglary gone wrong. The teen has been sent to a juvenile detention after his arrest in Port St Lucie, Florida, for writing the contract, signed by a friend, ordering the murders of his father, stepmother and older stepbrother for USD 1,200, police said.

The teen's father found the disturbing note and a folding knife in his backpack in his room over the weekend, police said in a charging document.

Police said the Florida boy told them he had been upset about getting grounded for bad grades, that he had "built up anger" toward his family members and he wanted them killed.

Police arrested the boy on Sunday and charged him with soliciting first degree murder. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to try the boy as an adult, Port St Lucie police spokesman Frank Sabol told the local media.

According to the affidavit, the boy told detectives that he had been depressed and angry about getting grounded for poor grades.

He told police that he had written the contract within a few weeks of school starting, and that his friend, thinking it was a joke, signed the contract a few weeks ago. The boy's plan was to stage a burglary-gone-wrong, according to the affidavit.

His friend would come over and, with the boy in the room, shoot the father, stepmother and stepbrother. The boy would then go to a neighbour's house and call 911 to report the break-in.

The note read: "I....will be hitman for hire for...to murder...I am aware that if I do not go through with it, I will not get paid. Money in question we agreed upon was 1200 dollars. I will leave in an hour or two within the murder."

The friend told detectives that he was working on a school project when he was approached by the suspect. He did not think the contract was legitimate, so he signed it and did not think about it again, he told police.

"We interviewed him and he's a good kid, he's just being bothered by this guy," said Sabol. The other teen will not face charges, he said. "We have to take things like this seriously, because you have the intimacy of family," Sabol said.

"They have total access to each other and you want to make sure if something like this comes to light, we want to make sure it doesn't occur and that you take appropriate action," he said.