How far gone do you need to be to shoot your parents a total of NINE times?
A Collin County jury on Friday convicted 18-year-old Zachary Elliot Callens of murdering his parents in their Frisco home.
In August 2014, Ryan Callens, 48, was shot twice in the doorway to his bedroom. Maria Elena Callens, 49, was shot seven times while in the bed nearby.
Their son, the youngest of five children, could be sentenced to life in prison. The punishment phase of his trial started late Friday and is to resume Monday morning.
..His four siblings are pressing for a long sentence.
“Nothing,” said Samantha Callens, 26, when asked about her brother’s emotional state since the murders. “Unremorseful. No guilt or sorry for how he’s affected us and our lives or even considering any of that.”
…All four of Zachary’s siblings took the witness stand. They talked about their last dinner as a family, their parents’ disciplinary methods and what they knew about Zachary’s struggles at home.
“They were extremely involved in all of our lives,” Ryan Callens Jr., 25, said of his parents. “They made a visible and conscious effort to be involved in everything we did.”
..For three months before they were killed, the Callenses had been sending Zachary to counseling. Records showed that he expressed homicidal thoughts toward his father, but counselors said they saw no need to refer him to police or for psychiatric treatment.
“This was standard counseling of a young man,” said Kleckner, the defense lawyer. He noted that the counselors never voiced concern for anyone’s safety and never noted any harsh feelings on Zachary’s part toward his mother.
Full story at Dallas News
What was the big event that led him to this action?
He didn’t do his homework. And his parents grounded him from his electronics.
