On January 18, 2022, in Nixon, Texas, 32-year-old Brandon Rasberry was found dead in his RV in an RV park. Cause of death? A single gunshot wound to the head. But he was relatively new to the RV park, so finding a motive for his senseless death became impossible. It definitely didn’t help that finding any other evidence proved to be equally difficult.
The case soon went cold, with Rasberry becoming one of the many whose death turned into a tragic mystery while their killer casually escaped justice. As time went on, it became obvious that cracking the case would be impossible.
That is, until April 12, 2024, when the Gonzales County Sheriff’s Office was alerted by officials in the Nixon‑Smiley Consolidated Independent School District that a 10-year-old elementary school student had calmly threatened to kill a classmate while on a bus. His exact words? “You wouldn’t be the first person I killed.”
While this could be just a 10-year-old who had watched too many murder mystery films and recklessly decided to play a scenario or live a fictional character, the investigators were shocked when he confessed to killing Rasberry two years ago. What made his crime more shocking wasn’t the fact that he was just seven when he killed the man he didn’t even know – it was how calmly he detailed stealing a pistol from a glove box of his grandfather’s truck, walking to Rasberry’s RV, shooting him in the head while he slept, firing again into the couch, and then returning the gun to its original location. Or the admission that he had no reason or anger toward Rasberry.
During a subsequent interview, the boy confessed to the killing of Rasberry. Although at the time of the murder, he would have been just under 8 years old, the details he provided matched the crime scene. Further doubt about his culpability was erased when the gun was found at a pawn shop, and investigators matched shell casings from the crime scene to it.
Despite the chilling confession and overwhelming evidence, the boy was not charged
Though the family of Rasberry finally knew who killed him, justice was as inaccessible as before, since Texas law states that children under 10 cannot be held criminally responsible for crimes – the boy could not be formally charged with Rasberry’s murder, as he was just seven at the time of committing the crime.
The least the authorities could do was place him in juvenile custody for threatening his classmate, as it was considered a “terroristic threat.” At the time, the local school district (Gonzales Independent School District) barred the boy from attending campuses under a court order and sued to keep him out of school as he posed a danger to other students.
