Alabama woman admits to killing child caught playing on her property

A woman from Phenix City, Alabama has been charged with capital murder after allegedly shooting 12-year-old Connor Mullins while he and his friends played in her yard.

Tywoana Jakes, 50, was promptly arrested and is currently being held without bond.



As AL.com reports, the incident in question took place on the evening of Wednesday February 1. Around 6:30 pm, Jakes discovered Mullins and his friends on land that belonged to her family across the road from her home on Windtree Drive near Highway 80. 

When the boys realized that Jakes had spotted them, two turned and ran away, but Mullins bent down. Jakes fired a single shot, which struck him in the neck, killing him instantly. There was no indication that Mullins was armed, nor that he knew the woman who shot him.

According to Russell County District Attorney Rick Chancey, Mullins and his friends were simply on the property "apparently doing mischief and rummaging through stuff."

"She said she shot, and I have a dead 12-year-old boy who was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing," Chancey explained, adding that the whole situation was "hard to digest."

A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for March, where Jakes says she will argue her case via her own attorneys.
 

"I hope we're not in a society now where this is going to be the thing," Chancey lamented. "I don’t want us to turn into a society where we take the law in our own hands and if somebody’s on our property, we shoot them or if we think it’s self-defense, we shoot them."

He went on to point out that, "there are still laws we have to abide by and if you’re going to have a gun, you have to know the laws and know what you can and can’t do. Once you pull that trigger, you can't undo it. The stakes are bad."