LAS VEGAS — A 9-year-old Arizona boy accused of shooting his father and another man to death at their rural home pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of negligent homicide, a development that will spare the town of St. Johns, Ariz., a highly publicized trial.
The November slayings drew international attention to the town of 4,000 after a police video was released in which the boy appeared to confess to shooting his father, Vincent Romero, and family friend Timothy Romans with a .22-caliber rifle.
With the boy’s guilty plea Thursday in connection with Romans’ death, prosecutors dropped the charge related to his father. The child’s sentence — including whether he remains in his mother’s care or enters the juvenile justice system — will depend on upcoming mental-health evaluations, a defense attorney said.
