Father forgives 10-year-old boy who killed his son while he slept

The Texas RV park saw a horrific act occur (Image: Getty)

Losing your child is every parent's worst nightmare but one father has taken the brave step of forgiving his son's killer - a seven year-old boy.

The child shot Brandon O’Quinn Rasberry dead as he slept in his campervan after grabbing his gradnfather's pistol.

Now 10, the youngster finally confessed to killing the 32-year-old back in 2022 and has been forgiven by the victim's own father.

Brandon’s father, Kenneth, could not believe the child, who is below the age of criminal culpability, had taken his sons’ life. 

He said: “I was shocked, very shocked. This isn’t anywhere the suspect that we thought it was,” according to  KSAT.

Brandon was shot in the head in his RV at the Lazy J RV Park after moving to the Texas location just four days before. His body was discovered after he failed to show up to work for two days. 

Kenneth said:  “This is a little boy, for reasons that I’m sure these counselors and case managers and all of that, that’s going to pick that poor little boy’s brain apart. He needs to be prayed on. He needs to be comforted ... He’s forgiven. And he can still be saved. He’s so young. He’s definitely tormented by something."

Gonzalez County Sheriff’s Office said they received a call from a Nixon-Smiley Independent School District principal about a student who threatened to attack another student on a bus. During the district’s threat assessment, they discovered the boy made a statement about shooting and killing a man two years ago.

The boy was questioned in detail about his admission. He told investigators that he was visiting his grandad who lived a few spots away from Kenneth. The boy said he found a 9 mm pistol from the glove box of his grandad’s truck.  The then seven-year-old entered Brandon’s home, saw the man sleeping and shot him, before also shooting into the sofa in the RV before returning the pistol to the glove compartment. The boy said he did not know Brandon.

The child told investigators his grandfather had pawned the gun and investigators subsequently located the pistol at a pawn shop in Seguin.

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms San Antonio Field Office used ballistic testing to determine that the gun was the same one used to kill Brandon.

The child was placed on 72-hour emergency detention “because of the severity of the crime and because of the continued concern for the child’s mental wellbeing the child,” as per GCSO. He was then taken to a psychiatric hospital in San Antonio for evaluation and treatment and then back to GSCO where he was booked on terrorist threat charges relating to the school bus incident.

In a letter to parents, Nixon-Smiley Superintendent Jeff Van Auken said the child will not be returning to the elementary school he was attending.