After a former Louisiana mayor and his adult daughter were found shot to death inside a home Sunday, a 10-year-old boy offered police an account of what happened. Within hours, the account evolved into a murder confession, according to Minden police, who are now holding the boy on two counts of first-degree murder. The boy has not been identified, though Police Chief Jared McIver says he's a relative of 82-year-old Joe Cornelius Sr., who died alongside 31-year-old Keisha Miles. "Our city is in shock," McIver adds, per NBC News. "How does a 10-year-old commit something so malicious?"
Officers were dispatched to Cornelius' Minden home around 6:30am Sunday following reports of shots fired. They found the two bodies with multiple gunshot wounds. An uninjured 6-year-old was also found at the home, per NBC. Early on, police spoke with the 10-year-old suspect. It's unclear exactly what he said, but his initial account had changed dramatically by Sunday afternoon, police say. In the company of his grandmother and legal guardian, the boy admitted to shooting the two victims, McIver says. "We know where the firearm came from that was used," McIver tells KTBS. But "we've still got a lot of unanswered questions."
Cornelius was a former long-time city councilman who served as interim mayor in 2013, and he had a "commitment and dedication to the betterment of our community," says Minden Mayor Nick Cox. Cornelius founded the Concerned Citizens of Minden in 1990 after a boy told him the local kids needed summer activities, KTBS reports. Years later, when he was going around selling ice cream, he offered treats to the sons of a woman who couldn't afford to pay full price. "He told me, 'It's not about the money, I do this for the kids," Patti Hadland Porter tells KTAL. (More Louisiana stories.)
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