The bowling ball murder of a five-year-old boy by a 13-year-old North Texas boy is getting international attention because the motive for the murder was simply that the 13-year-old had become irritated with the five-year-old boy and thus hit him multiple times with the bowling ball in the head said police according to a June 28, 2013, Star-Telegram report.
“A 13-year-old Fort Worth boy confessed to killing his 5-year-old neighbor by hitting him twice in the head with a bowling ball, according to allegations detailed in a detention hearing Friday.”
On Tuesday, five-year-old Sida was reported missing from his apartment. Family members describe Sida as a little boy who was a good boy, funny, and he liked to laugh.
On Wednesday, about 18 hours after Sida had been last seen riding his bike, the body of the five-year-old boy was found.
“In a statement, police have said the teen and Sida went into the fenced back yard of a vacant house in the 4800 block of Lois Street, where the teen became irritated with Sida ‘and hit him multiple times in the head, causing his death’.”
On Thursday, only a day after five-year-old Sida Osman’s body had been found, the 13-year-old teen was arrested. Since he is a juvenile, his name is being withheld. Since he is younger than 14, the suspect is not eligible to stand trial as an adult.
“The teen made the statement about the death of Sida Osman after people found him crying, according to a summary of the case against the teen read by a county employee during the hearing.”
During Friday’s morning hearing, the 13-year-old suspect was dressed in a tan jumpsuit and wore handcuffs shackled to a belt around his waist. Standing before Associate Judge Kim Brown who ordered that the teen would remain in custody and be appointed an attorney, the teen showed little emotion.
The teen had been arrested on a capital murder warrant because the killing of children under the age of six constitutes capital murder in Texas.
According to chief prosecutor of the Tarrant County district attorney’s juvenile division Riley Shaw, the case has not been presented yet to prosecutors and no formal charges have been filed so far against the teen.
“This is a very serious offense,” Riley Shaw said. “We’re going to look at it very carefully. I anticipate we’ll make a decision next week.”
During Friday’s hearing, the mom of the 13-year-old teen who had taken the life of a five-year-old boy by fatally hitting him with a bowling ball stood silently next to her son as “the hearing was conducted in hushed tones at the bench, most of it inaudible to those sitting in the gallery.”
None of the relatives of five-year-old Sida attended the hearing.
Instead, on Friday morning, members of the Somali community to which the five-year-old boy’s family belonged got together at the Webber Gardens Apartments to try to deal with shattered dreams and to prepare for the little boy’s funeral.
On Friday, Somali community members came from Fort Worth, Arlington, Dallas. Once upon a time, they came from a farming background from deep south of Somalia with the hope of being able to escape the dangers in Africa. “They weren’t ready for those that lurk in America.”
According to a family friend, “the suspect had been in and out of juvenile detention and was on probation at the time of the killing.”