Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 6, 1990 TAG: 9007060317
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The boy said in a telephone interview Thursday that he watched from outside Avis Brown's apartment last week as other boys pelted her with rocks and hit her with a tree branch.
His mother called the Roanoke Times & World-News to talk about the case. Before she put her son on the phone, she said, "Every day I keep asking him: `Did you take part in it?' And he says: `No.' "
Police have charged her son and two other boys - 8 and 9 - with malicious wounding. The 6-year-old may be the youngest person ever charged with a violent offense in Virginia.
Brown, who suffered cuts over her head, face and legs in the June 27 attack, was still in the hospital Thursday afternoon.
"I'm not saying my son didn't do it," the 6-year-old's mother said, "but I just know what he tells me. He deserves punishment if he did do it - all of 'em do. I'm blaming him because he didn't come and tell me" while it was happening.
Brown and the two other boys who have been charged have said in interviews that an older, larger boy was involved in the attack.
The 6-year-old said that wasn't true. His mother said Brown might have been confused, because her older son came in afterward and stopped the attack.
She said the boy, 11, ran and told her and she called 911.
Brown "would probably be dead if he hadn't walked up," the mother said.
The mother said that her 6-year-old hadn't been in trouble before. She hadn't let him play outdoors much until the family moved to Virginia from Dayton, Ohio, last summer. "I didn't think Martinsville was that bad."
She said her mother often went to Brown's apartment to help the old woman out; sometimes Brown, who lived alone, fell out of her chair and couldn't get up.
The boy's mother said he often asked if he could take food over to Brown. "Seems like he likes her a lot."
by CNB