This is a true crime list about 10 children who committed murders.
DISCLAIMER AND WARNING: Some of the contents are graphic and very disturbing, especially because many of the victims were children themselves. Reader discretion is advised.
11/24/20...
Because of its controversy both in the American legal and medical system, his case was faced by courts and media like the Jordan Brown's case, but, unlike Jordan, Christopher Pittman was persecuted as an adult.
Married couple Joe, 66 years old, and Joy Pittman, 62 years old, residing in Chester, South Carolina, were shot to death in their bed during the night of November 28, 2001, and their house was set on fire.
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The next day, two counties away, police caught the Pittmans' 12-year-old grandson, Christopher, driving their car. He also had with him their dog, their guns and $ 33, all stolen from them. He told a story of a large black male who had kidnapped him after killing his grandparents and setting fire to the house, but he eventually confessed to the murder, proclaiming that "they deserved what they got".
Christopher Frank Pittman was depressed because he felt abandoned by his mother and the relationship with his father, Joe, was troubled. He suffered to the point that he ran away from their home in Florida and threatened to kill himself. He was hospitalized in a facility for troubled children, where he was diagnosed with mild chronic depression accompanied by defiant and negative behaviour and put on Paxil, an antidepressant. But his father decided to remove him from there six days later and to send him to live with his paternal grandparents in South Carolina, where a doctor, having no samples of Paxil to give, prescribed him another antidepressant, Zoloft.
Maybe suffering from too high a dose of Zoloft or from Paxil withdrawal, Christopher allegedly began to experience negative side-effects from the new medication almost immediately, even if there is also evidence that issues began before he even went on Paxil.
After a few weeks in Chester, the boy got into a dispute on a school bus, where he chocked another student, and behaved unruly during a church service. His grandparents disciplined him, threatening to send him back to his father. That same night, he waited for the old couple to go to sleep, stole his grandfather's shotgun from a cabinet and killed them as they slept in their beds. Then, he set the house on fire and fled.
Since South Carolina sets no minimum age for trying defendants as adults, Christopher was convicted in adult court, despite the efforts of his defense lawyer Arnold "Andy" Vickery to get the case heard in family court.
His trial began on January 31, 2005, three years after the murders.
While the prosecution countered that Christopher simply killed his grandparents out of anger towards them, pointing his statement to police in which he, lucid and clear, said that they deserved it, the defense claimed that the boy was involuntarily intoxicated by Zoloft and lost control, hence he committed manslaughter, not murder.
The forensic psychiatric who examined Christopher for prosecution, Dr. Pamela M. Crawford, concluded in her report that the boy knew what he was doing because he provided "nonpsychotic reasons" for killing his grandparents, tried to cover up the crime, fled and made self-protective statements to avoid arrest.
Christopher stated that his mood changed on the Zoloft medication, to the extent that he "didn't have any feelings". He was allegedly hearing voices telling him to commit the crime and, in a letter that was read on court by his father, he wrote: "Through the whole thing, it was like watching your favourite TV show. You know what is going to happen but you can't do anything to stop it".
The trial was focused on the debate about the real effects the antidepressant, made by Pfizer Inc., has on children and teens. Studies showed reports linked to suicidal behaviour, not homicidal, so medical experts didn't believe there was a link between antidepressant and acts of extreme violence. Only a handful of psychiatrists have ever argued that the negative side-effects can unleash rages so uncontrollable as to overwhelm a person's ability to distinguish between right and wrong and commit murder.
On February 15, 2005, Christopher Pittman was found guilty of first-degree murder, as required by prosecution, and sentenced to 30 years in prison, which was the minimum penalty the judge could give. The maximum sentence was life in prison.
If he had been convicted in family court as a juvenile, he could have been kept in custody only until he turned 21.
In December 2010, aged 21, Christopher pleaded guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter and his sentence was reduced to 25 years.
His family, especially his older sister Danielle Pittman Finchum and his maternal grandmother Delnora Duprey, strongly believe in his innocence, claiming that Christopher was pushed to kill by his prescribed drugs. They often go and visit him in his prison in Allendale, South Carolina.
While in prison, Christopher came out as a transgender woman, legally changed her name to Kristen Avery Pittman and was released on February 22nd, 2023.
