When an 11-year-old boy went looking for his confiscated Nintendo Switch gaming system, police in Pennsylvania allege he instead found a gun, which he loaded and then used to shoot his sleeping father.
Douglas Dietz, 42, has been identified as the father who was killed on Tuesday, January 13. His adopted son, Clayton Dietz, has been charged as an adult with his father’s death.
According to an affidavit shared with Us Weekly, Clayton turned 11 the very day he shot his dad dead.
The first calls about gunfire came in just after 3 a.m. Police arrived at the family’s Duncannon home and took Clayton into custody immediately.
The affidavit alleges Clayton told police he had a great day with his parents Monday, January 12, as all three celebrated his impending 11th birthday. According to the boy’s adopted mother, Jillian Dietz, they all stayed up until midnight just to sing “Happy Birthday” to Clayton. But afterwards, when his father told him to go sleep and Clayton told police he got angry.
Once his parents were asleep, Clayton told police he went into their bedroom, where he found the key to his dad’s safe. He believed his Switch — which his father had taken from him earlier for an unspecified reason — was in the safe. But it wasn’t there. Instead, the child found a revolver and bullets.
He allegedly told investigators he loaded the gun, walked over to his slumbering father’s side of the bed, pulled back the hammer and fired the gun at his dad.
Clayton allegedly explained that “he was mad” at his father, “and had not thought about” what would happen if he shot him, it is detailed in the affidavit.
Jillian told police she woke up to what smelled like fireworks, nudged her husband in a vain bid to wake him up, and said she thought she heard water dripping. She rose from the bed, turned on the light, and realized it was blood dripping from the gunshot wound in Doug’s head.
She said her son entered the parents’ bedroom from a closet that’s connected to his room, and proclaimed, “Daddy’s dead!” He then ran downstairs screaming “My dad’s dead … I killed my dad. I hate myself,” she told police, it states in the affidavit.
Jillian tried performing CPR on her husband as her father called 911.
Officers sent to the home recovered the murder weapon and spoke to Clayton, who told his mom in front of troopers about searching for the key, finding the safe, and loading the firearm.
Jillian allowed police to speak to the boy, who allegedly said he “shot somebody.” He “admitted he had someone in mind who he was going to shoot, whom he identified as his father,” it is stated in the court docs.
In Pennsylvania, suspects who are 10 and older are automatically charged as adults with murder. Later, their defense lawyers usually filed motions seeking to move the proceedings to juvenile court.
Clayton is being held in the Perry County Prison without bond. Jillian and Doug adopted him in 2018 when he was 3.
Local reports suggest he is among the youngest defendants to be charged with homicide in Pennsylvania.
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