Shawn Willis: Tennessee teen shot dead sleeping mom for taking away his phone
CLINTON, TENNESSEE: A teenager killed his mom while she was sleeping because she confiscated his phone. Shawn Willis, who was 17 at the time, allegedly shot his sleeping mother in the head in their Rocky Top home in April 2020. Shawn reportedly used his mother Sandy Willis' handgun she kept on her nightstand. Shawn took the gun from his mother's nightstand, took it into a different room to load it without his mother hearing, stood over her bed and shot her at close range while she was asleep, according to newly released court documents.
The case against Willis, who is now 18, was originally filed in Anderson County Juvenile Court but was later transferred to the county criminal court after prosecutors chose to charge him as an adult. Willis is currently being held at the Anderson County Detention Facility in Clinton and his bond is set at $1,000,000. In a similar incident, 14-year-old Florida teen Aiden Fucci allegedly stabbed a 13-year-old cheerleader Tristyn Bailey multiple times, resulting in her death. Fucci was charged as an adult with first-degree murder.
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According to a recently released juvenile court petition that was filed in Anderson County Court on May 6, 2020, Shawn Tyler Willis was charged with first-degree murder in the April 2020 death of his mother. "Shawn T Willis confessed to taking his mother’s pistol from off of her nightstand as she was asleep. Shawn took the pistol downstairs, as to conceal the sound of loading it, then Shawn returned back upstairs to his mother’s room. Shawn walked around the victim’s bed, to the opposite side of the room, positioned himself alongside her bed, and shot her at close range, on the left side of her head, thus causing her death," the petition cited.
Details surrounding his case have recently been made public after it was transferred from a juvenile court to a criminal court. Prosecutors are charging Willis, who has since turned 18, as an adult. He has been charged with first-degree murder.