Jesse Osborne, seen here in February 2018, pleaded guilty to murder. (Ken Ruinard/The Independent-Mail via AP, Pool)
A South Carolina teen could face life in prison after he pleaded guilty Wednesday to murdering his father and a six-year-old boy.
Jesse Osborne was 14 when he shot and killed his father, Jeffrey, in their home on Sept. 28, 2016. According to a confession he gave following his arrest, Osborne shot his father in the head three times as he sat in a chair.
Investigators said he then drove his father’s pickup truck three miles to Townville Elementary School in Anderson County where he opened fire on a group of students playing outside for recess.
Jacob Hall, 6, was shot in the leg and died three days later.
Osborne, now 16, entered a guilty plea Wednesday with no deal.
He could face anywhere between 30 years and life in prison when he is sentenced at a later date. The U.S. Supreme Court allows a life sentence without parole for suspects who are juveniles when they kill someone only in the most heinous of cases.
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Prosecutors said Osborne talked about the shooting on social media in the days leading up to the killings.
He considered shooting students at his middle school where he had been suspended earlier that fall for bringing a hatchet and machete.
"The middle school has tons of cops," he said in the chat group six days before shooting. "The elementary school doesn't."
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Osborne told investigators he was angry at his father because he would get drunk and berate and try to fight his mother and him. The teen also said in his confession that he was bullied.
Anderson County is a two-hour drive northwest of Columbia.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
