A 15-year-old girl faces a charge of murder, as an adult, for allegedly shooting and killing a 17-year-old boy earlier this week while she was playing around with a gun they stole in a home burglary.
Ladajianna Mosely -- who was born in 1997 --said she thought she had unloaded the .45-caliber handgun she and two others had just recently stolen after breaking into a neighbor's home. To her apparent surprise, after removing the magazine, the gun still discharged after she pointed the firearm at the chest of her sister's boyfriend, 17-year-old Raymond Berryman, and pulled the trigger.
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According to court documents obtained by New Times, Mosely told police that she, Berryman, and 16-year-old Pedro Sanchez (also referred to as Pedro Palacios in court filings) had kicked in the side door of a house not too far from Mosely's, near 83rd Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road.
They "ransacked" the home, according to Mosely, stealing items including three guns, described as a shotgun, a .45-caliber handgun, and a revolver.
The three of them went back to Mosely's house, and started "playing" with the guns, like when she removed the magazine from the .45-caliber handgun and pointed it at Berryman.
Mosely told police that Berryman said not to point the gun at him, because it was loaded, just before she pulled the trigger, according to court documents.
Berryman ran out of the house, then collapsed on the street. Berryman, a Tolleson High School student, was pronounced dead at a hospital less than an hour later.
According to court documents, Sanchez and Mosely decided they would tell police that Berryman was the victim of a drive-by shooting, and she would hide the guns in a bathroom in her house.
Mosely fessed up after being taken to Phoenix PD headquarters, according to the documents. Mosely's sister, who was dating Berryman, told police that she asleep in her room on the second floor of the home when her boyfriend was shot, and didn't know what was going on, saying she was awoken by the gunshot.
Mosely's facing charges of second-degree murder and burglary.
At her first court appearance today, bond for Mosely, who was wearing jailhouse stripes, was set at $300,000.
