A 14-year-old boy in Cheyenne, Wyoming, has been charged with first-degree murder after allegedly shooting his mother in the back of the head during a family argument. The incident occurred on March 7, and the victim, 41-year-old Theresa McIntosh, died the following day in a Colorado hospital. Authorities say the teen used his mother's stolen gun following disputes over grades and a missing tablet.
The shooting took place in a home in Cheyenne on the afternoon of March 7. According to the Laramie County Sheriff's Office, deputies arrived to find Theresa McIntosh, 41, with a gunshot wound to the back of her head. She was unconscious but breathing and was airlifted to a hospital in Colorado, where she succumbed to her injuries on March 8.
The suspect, identified as 14-year-old Havoc Leone, was taken into custody at the scene. Initially, he told deputies that his mother had killed herself, but he later changed his account. Court documents reveal that Leone admitted to shooting McIntosh while she was on the floor working on a puzzle. He fired a single shot from her Taurus 9 mm handgun, which he had taken from her vehicle a week earlier during an argument over his D grade in math.
On the day of the incident, tensions escalated when McIntosh and her common-law husband—Leone's father—confronted the teen about allegedly stealing a tablet from one of her cleaning clients. McIntosh reportedly called Leone a "thief" and said he was mentally handicapped. She demanded the tablet's password, which was in a notebook in his room. Leone retrieved the notebook along with the hidden gun and threw it at his mother. As she bent down to pick it up, still yelling, he pointed the gun with both hands and pulled the trigger while she faced away.
Leone told investigators he was angry before the shooting and "couldn't tell her how much he hated her because she doesn’t understand him." He also said he had considered murdering her when she made him do unwanted tasks, and that she called him names.
Leone's father, who was in the basement playing video games with noise-canceling headphones, heard a popping sound and went upstairs. He found Leone, who said, "I don't know, it just went off." The father called 911 and tried to aid McIntosh, noting blood and brain matter, and the unexpected presence of her gun on the floor. During questioning, he expressed suspicion but hoped it was a suicide, saying, "It'd be a lot easier to accept that she killed herself than my son tried to kill her."
Leone faces charges as an adult for first-degree murder and is held on $500,000 bond, with a court appearance scheduled for March 18.
