Kudos to the mother.
Via Indy Star:
In the end, it was his mother who gave him up.
Somehow, when police responded to the scene where a 15-year-old boy had been shot to death, Carrie Qualls had a feeling her son, Christian, was involved, according to court documents.
Police found Daniel Neal Burns dead inside the living room of an apartment in the Crooked Creek neighborhood on the city’s Northwestside on Oct. 17.
As investigators were questioning witnesses, court documents state, Carrie Qualls approached them and said, “Is my son involved? I’m just gonna put it out there and tell it. He’s been out here robbing people. He’s been breaking into apartments and cars and stealing things.”
She was upset, teary-eyed and shaking at the time, police said. Now, less than a month after the fatal shooting, her 16-year-old son faces a murder charge as an adult.
It didn’t take long for detectives to tie him to the scene. Crime lab technicians, court documents said, recovered the cellphone of the apartment’s maintenance man, who initially called police after finding Burns dead in the unit, and noticed that all of the contacts had been wiped, except for one: “Me-Christian Qualls.”
The maintenance man said his car had been broken into and that his phone and some other items had been taken. He’d seen some young kids come and go from the apartment where Burns was found and went to see whether that’s where his stolen property was, according to court documents.
He found the door to the unit partially open and could see Burns’ body on the floor, court documents said. Police also said they recovered a spent bullet from the wall.
Detectives later called Carrie Qualls. She was worried about her son and also mentioned that her brother’s gun had been stolen.
When investigators interviewed Carrie Qualls’ brother, Brandon Boddie, he said his .45-caliber Ruger had been stolen the night before Burns was killed, court documents said. Police tested a spent shell casing from Boddie’s Ruger and matched it with the bullet found in the wall of the apartment.