He’s just a baby, says mother of "killer" boy

“I look at him, and I don’t see a murderer,” the woman said through sobs during an interview published yesterday in The Chicago Tribune.“I see my baby. He is my baby.”

The two boys are charged with the murder and are being held at a psychiatric hospital in Chicago. They are scheduled to be in court yesterday afternoon.

In the interview, the mother said her son is a rambunctious child who earns dollars andquarters by offering to fold clothes or sweep out the neighborhood launderette.

“He offers to fix the shelves in the store, he picks up (in) yards,” said the 27-year-old, who works as a supervisor at a fast-food restaurant and has three other children aged 10, 8 and 5.

She spoke about seeing her son for the first time at police headquarters Sunday night. Detectives said he could go to the bathroom only if a police officer escorted him.

“He was sitting there, half-asleep, his thumb in his mouth,” she recalled. “And I watched this big detective taking him down the hall and bringing him back…. I knew something was wrong.”

After a court hearing Tuesday, the woman and her husband got to spend a few minutes with the boy in the courtroom, but bailiffs forbade them from touching him.

“I want to hug my baby,” she said. “I said, `can’t you see that boy needs a hug?’ and they said, `we aren’t allowed to let you touch him.’

“He’s so little. He’s so scared,” she said. “I felt a tear coming down,and I had to walk away.”