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Arizona Man Allegedly Shot 80-Year-Old Stepfather To Death On Christmas Day
Police say Michael Kaser told them he'd contemplated murdering his stepfather, Michael Kinney, for two decades before allegedly shooting him in the family car while his mother sat in the passenger seat.
An Phoeniz-area man is accused of gunning down his stepfather on Christmas and telling police that he'd contemplated killing the 80-year-old for two decades.
Officers responded to reports of a vehicle that had rolled backwards into a house on Osborn Lane in Gilbert — about four miles northwest of the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport — around 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 25, according to a press release from the Gilbert Police Department.
Upon arrival, they found a neighbor, Michael Kinney, 80, in the driver's seat of the vehicle in question with multiple gunshot wounds and blood coming from his mouth. The vehicle's windshield was riddled with bullet holes, according to Phoenix CBS affiliate KPHO.
Michael Kaser, 48, then emerged from Kinney's nearby home with blood on his clothing and was detained by police. Shell casings were reportedly found on the floor of the home's garage.
When he was taken into custody, according to Phoenix Fox affiliate KSAZ, he allegedly told police: "I killed my stepfather. I should have killed him a long time ago."
Kaser allegedly told police during an interview that he, his mother and Kinney had just driven home from a family gathering.
He allegedly said that he got out of the car as it neared the home, grabbed a .380 handgun from inside, walked back out and shot his stepfather through the car windshield multiple times. Then, Kaser allegedly told police, he reached over his stepfather's body through the driver's side window and put car in neutral, causing it to roll backward into the other family's home.
Kaser's mother, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was uninjured; according to court documents reviewed by KPHO, Kaser told police he did not recall his mother being in the car at the time of the shooting, and said that he had no intention of hurting her.
Police say that he further admitted during questions that "he thought about killing Michael Kinney for 20 years and almost killed him on a prior occasion" due to "decades of alleged physical and emotional abuse" toward him and his mother.
Witnesses reported having hearing gunshots, according to KSAZ, and one recalled seeing a man kicking a car and yelling, "I'm going to [expletive] kill you" moments before the shots rang out.
A neighbor, Colleen Mohrman, told CBS 5 that she initially thought the noise came from a child playing with a toy gun.
"And then, after that, I heard an adult voice. It sounded like a male voice say: 'No, no, no. Mike, no.'"
Minutes later, she said, police arrived at the scene. She was reportedly surprised to hear Kaser's alleged motive for killing his stepfather.
"You just never know what's going on behind closed doors," said told the outlet. "You think it's a happy family, and now we learned that it obviously wasn't."
Kaser was charged with first-degree murder and being a prohibited possessor of a weapon due to prior criminal convictions. He is being held on a $1 million bond, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department.
The Gilbert Police Department could not be reached for comment at press time.
