A Michigan grandmother who killed her grandson “hunted down” the boy before she opened fire on him last year, a prosecutor in the case said in court on Monday.
Sandra Layne, 75, ignored the pleas of her 17-year-old grandson Johnathan Hoffman when she shot him 10 times over a six-minute period, prosecutor Paul Walton said, according to The Associated Press. He played a 911 call last May in which Hoffman said, “I’m going to die,” as Layne shot him.
Layne testified last week that she was acting in self defense because Hoffman displayed erratic behavior, was using synthetic marijuana, and had unsavory friends. On the day of the shooting, she said that Hoffman menaced her and she feared for her life, saying she was “desperate and didn’t know what to do.”
But Walton said that she did not report any injuries to police when they arrived at her West Bloomfield Township, Mich., home after the shooting.
“Not I was afraid, I acted in self-defense, he came after me,” Walton said, according to AP. “I murdered. I shot. I killed—those are her first statements to law enforcement. … She hunted down Jonathan Hoffman because he wouldn’t listen.” He termed the shooting as a “massacre.”
Jerome Sabbota, the attorney for Layne, said that Hoffman was a troubled teen who made his grandmother desperate after he failed a drug test while he was on probation.
“You’ve got to put yourself in her place,” Sabbota said, according to the Detroit News. “This is a tragedy but don’t compound it with your verdict.”
He added: “There were two sides to Jonathan Hoffman. There is a side of someone who used drugs … who frightened his grandmother. … She doesn’t deny she shot him. She shot him because she was afraid.”
In the case, there is no question that Layne shot the boy, but what is in question is whether she should be held criminally responsible for Hoffman’s death.
