CHEYENNE — A 14-year-old accused of shooting his mother in the head after she called him “retarded” and a “thief” was bound over to felony court Wednesday, charged as an adult with first-degree murder.
Laramie County Assistant District Attorney Kelly Strickland argued during Wednesday’s preliminary hearing that Havoc Leone expressed a long-simmering hatred for his mother, 41-year-old Theresa McIntosh, had thoughts about killing her, and then followed through when presented an opportunity.
Conversely, Leone is an emotionally vulnerable child who had been subjected to a pattern of degrading treatment by a mentally ill mother, argued defense attorney Jonathan Foreman, one of the boy’s two lawyers.
“If I called you ‘retarded,’ would you believe it?” Foreman asked Laramie County Sheriff’s Office Detective Miles DePrimo, who testified about the details of the case, which included Leone admitting to hating his mother and shooting her.
DePrimo answered, “No.”
“Would a child who had been hearing that his whole childhood start to question that?” Foreman followed up.
“Maybe,” the detective answered.
“Ms. McIntosh, who was mentally ill … regularly called him ‘retarded,’ pulled his hair” and slapped him, said Foreman.
Even so, “young Mr. Leone” — as Strickland repeatedly referred to the defendant — demonstrated the malice and forethought required for a first-degree murder charge, he said.
Along with stealing his mother’s gun from her car a week earlier and admitting he thought about killing her then, Leone’s interviews with detectives show he had “prior thoughts” of shooting his mother but hadn’t found the right opportunity until March 6, when the argument culminated in her being shot, Strickland said.
“Right before pulling the trigger on the gun, Theresa yelled at him again if he was ‘retarded,’” Strickland said, recounting an interview Leone had with an investigator. “He said, ‘yes mom,’ and pulled the trigger.”
She was still alive when sheriff’s deputies arrived and was rushed to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, then flown to a hospital in Colorado, where she died.
Most of the hearing consisted of DePrimo outlining the evidence found at the scene and what Leone told detectives about the shooting.
Leone was walked into Laramie County Circuit Court Judge Sean Chambers’ courtroom flanked by deputies a few minutes before his hearing began, appearing small in an oversized tan juvenile jail uniform.
He had close-cropped hair, wore large eyeglasses and sat quietly through the 75-minute hearing.
He didn’t express much visible emotion during the sometimes-graphic testimony about his mother’s shooting, paying attention for most of the hearing.
The Tossed Notebook
Being called “retarded” seemed to be a trigger for Leone, DePrimo testified.
After Leone, his mother and father argued about an electronic tablet he allegedly stole from a client of his mother’s cleaning business, they all went their separate ways in their three-level home just south of Cheyenne city limits, DePrimo said.
The father went into the basement to play video games, McIntosh was upstairs in Leone’s room doing a puzzle on the floor, while Leone was at the kitchen table doing homework.
At some point, Leone went up to his room with McIntosh and they began arguing again, DePrimo testified.
The gun he stole from his mother’s car, a Taurus 9mm pistol, had been stashed in a boot in Leone’s closet, the detective said.
At one point during their argument, Leone went to the closet to retrieve a notebook that supposedly had a password to access the stolen tablet, he continued. Leone also pulled the gun out of the boot and held it by his side to hide it from McIntosh.
With McIntosh sitting back on her knees on the floor, Leone told detectives that he tossed the notebook at her, which forced the woman to lean forward away from him, exposing the back of her head, DePrimo said.
“As she knelt forward, he revealed the gun and shot her,” he said.
“By tossing that notebook, he put her in a position to be shot in the back of the head?” Strickland asked, to which DePrimo answered in the affirmative.
McIntosh was shot once in the head behind her left ear, he added.
Different Stories
Leone’s father heard the gunshot from the basement and went upstairs to see what had happened, where he encountered his son outside the bedroom, DePrimo testified.
When he asked the teen what happened, the father told detectives Leone answered, “I don’t know, it just went off,” DePrimo said.
Leone himself at first told detectives that McIntosh had the gun and handed it to him, the detective testified. During that act, he said that “his finger slipped” and the gun fired.
Later, he told another detective the account involving getting the gun out of the boot.
Leone also said that “he had thought about killing Theresa then” at the time he stole the gun from his mother’s car, “but he didn’t,” DePrimo testified.
“He didn’t like to be called names and didn’t know how to express his anger and hatred to her,” he added.
When cross-examined by Foreman, DePrimo admitted that while Leone was asked about his negative feelings toward his mother, he wasn’t asked about the opposite.
“Did you ever ask him if he loved his mother?” Foreman asked. “Are you familiar with the term ‘love-hate relationship?’”
Foreman also explored the initial report to 911 by McIntosh’s common-law husband that she may have tried to kill herself.
“But the initial assumption by her husband was that she killed herself, is that right?” he asked, to which DePrimo answered he didn’t know.
First-Degree
After the testimony, Foreman reminded Judge Chambers that he also had the option of binding Leone over for trial on a lesser charge instead of first-degree murder.
He urged him to do just that, and advance Leone to Laramie County District Court to face a charge of second-degree murder, which is killing someone in the heat of passion and not with malice and premeditation.
What the prosecution has in this case is “a 14-year-old with limited ability to engage in self-control,” Foreman argued. “You have something that happened in the heat of the moment.”
He also asked for the teen’s bond to be reduced from $500,000 cash only to $100,000 cash or surety.
Leone “said he wanted to kill his mom a week before, and then that day” did just that,” Strickland countered in his rebuttal of Foreman’s statements. “That was the perfect opportunity.
“As soon as she bent over, he found it. This is premeditated, your honor.”
Chambers denied the defense motion to reduce bond, leaving it at $500,000, and also found there’s enough evidence to support a first-degree murder charge.
He bound Leone over to District Court for an arraignment at a date to be set by the court.
A conviction on first-degree murder carries a sentence of life in prison. In some cases, the prosecutor may also seek the death penalty, although that’s very rare in Wyoming.
A message left with the Laramie County District Attorney’s Office after Wednesday’s hearing asking if it’s considering a death penalty in this case wasn’t returned by the time this story was published.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
