It’s a sad indictment of the world when electrical entertainment devices become more important than our actual blood and kin, like when we spend family dinners checking our phones or barely bat an eyelid when certain relatives sneak off to watch the football or yet another episode of a TV talent show. But at the thin end of the wedge it’s a lot grimmer than that, because a 16-year-old boy in America has just confessed to killing his parents because they took his iPod from him.
Vincent Parker, from Norfolk, Virginia, carried out the attacks on his parents in December 2013, just a week before Christmas. Using pepper spray on his mum Carol, he then stabbed her in the eye before beating her to death with a baseball bat. When his dad Wayne got home, Parker hit him with a crow bar and then stabbed him multiple times. Wayne managed to call the police but later died from his wounds in hospital.
Parker initially said that his father started the violence, however, he eventually admitted the crimes in court and pleaded guilty for two counts of second degree murder. Why did he do it? He told detectives: ‘I just remember getting mad. It's all from my dad. All this stuff like my dad taking away my iPod and stuff.’
His maternal grandfather, Allen Taylor, told WTKR.com, ‘I want him to get some type of counselling. Help him grow up and be an understanding man. Be sorry for what he did do. I told him to ask god to forgive him for what he did.’
Parker will be sentenced in September.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.