Senate candidate reveals he killed his 'insane' mother after she shot at him with a rifle
A Republican Senate candidate from Arizona has shaken the world of gun control advocates after sharing intimate details about shooting dead his own mother more than 50 years ago in what he claims was an act of self-defense. Bobby Wilson said that he is not trying to hide anything.
The 72-year-old man is running to represent a district in southern Arizona. He said that his mother had been "insane" and that she had shot at him with a rifle while he was in bed one night at their farmhouse in Oklahoma in 1963. Wilson was only 18 years old at the time when he shot and killed her. In what would be another tragedy that night, the farmhouse caught fire and his sister died.
He said of the incident that took place in 1963: "I'm lucky to be alive, twice over." Wilson wrote about all of this in his book 'Bobby's Trials' in 2010 and he also mentions the incidents in his website biography. Earlier this month, however, the incidents came to the attention of the public after he made an appearance at a Moms Demand Action forum that was held in Tucson.
He told the crowd present at the forum that he was the "living proof" that the only person who can stop someone from hurting another person was a "good guy with a gun". He did not mention, however, that the person he shot in self-defense was his mother, reported the Daily Mail.
A Democrat who is representing the same district that Wilson is running in, Rep. Daniel Hernandez, was also present at the forum. He said that a former Congresswoman who had been shot in 2011 in Tucson, Gabby Giffords, was also present at the forum. Other gun violence survivors were also reportedly there and, according to Hernandez, many of the people in the audience were shocked by what Wilson was saying.
Hernandez himself had been at the scene when Giffords was shot and he said that Wilson brought up the former Congresswoman's incident during the forum. Wilson reported said that Giffords should have had more security. Hernandez said: "I've never ever heard someone be so aggressive in that view, and also, to drag Gabby into it, I thought, was so distasteful and so disgusting."
One of the organizers of the March for Our Lives AZ, Jacob Martinez, said that Wilson's account of what happened to him in his teen years are proof that there is a necessity to provide emotional help for those who need it.
He also said that the terrifying accounts of what happened to Wilson show that guns should definitely be kept locked up in homes. He said: "He should know better than anybody that something needs to be done, and the fact that he can't acknowledge that speaks volumes."
Wilson is currently in the process of running for a seat that is currently occupied by Democrat Sen. Andrea Dalessandro. His main opponent in the running for the seat is Republican Shelley Kais who has made it clear that there are many other issues that voters are more interested in. She said: "We need someone who can secure a position and a voice for the people of southern Arizona and we don't need controversy like this swirling around them."
Wilson does not seem that he is bothered at all by all the criticism that he received for the appearance at the forum meeting. Only one night after the forum, he posted on Facebook that he had been the only Republican candidate who had the "guts" to appear. He wrote: "I was greeted with boos and catcalls. Loved it!"
Wilson was put in jail after the deaths were discovered, the Arizona Republic reported on July 16. The court finally dismissed his case in the early 1970s after the two trials that he had to stand for. The newspaper also reported that headlines from the time of the incidents in Wilson's life gave different versions of how Wilson's sister died that night.
Other details of the incident from that night as also pretty unclear. He said that he did not confess to anything that related to what happened that night because he allegedly had amnesia and couldn't remember what exactly took place for many years after that.
He moved to Arizona in the mid-1990s after he worked as an attorney for some time. Once in Arizona, he worked as a private investigator for a while and taught in the paralegal program at the Rio Salado College. Wilson has made it clear that he is a licensed gun owner and that he has not had to act in self-defense since he shot his mother dead. He said: "That's the only time I've ever been in that situation, and I hope it's the last time."
After his acquittal, Wilson went on to get a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Texas — Arlington in 1968. In 1973, he graduated from the Texas Tech University Law School. He practiced law for 20 years after that and retired in 1994. A year later, he moved to Phoenix, Arizona. According to GV News, he currently teaches law courses at the Maricopa County Community College District. He is now the head of paralegal instruction.