Just a few hours after police say he shot and killed his family of five, 14-year-old Mason Sisk confessed in an interrogation room, telling investigators he did not want his siblings to grow up in the home where their parents frequently argued.
“Yeah, they argue a lot, and I got fed up with it,” Sisk said in a recorded confession. “And the kids were going through a lot.”
Sisk is charged with capital murder, accused of shooting and killing his parents and three younger siblings at their home in Elkmont in September of 2019.
Brian Jones, the district attorney of Limestone County, played a video of the interrogation in court on Friday as Sisk’s defense argued a judge should throw out the confession.
Michael Sizemore, one of Sisk’s lawyers, argued that the teen simply repeated back information police fed to him — information about the motive and the alleged chain of events. In the video, Sisk said that he could not remember which family member he shot first. The teen did not provide a detailed explanation of what happened that night, despite repeated questions from the sheriff and an investigator.
The defense also questioned why the sheriff’s office detained Sisk for two hours before reading him his rights to remain silent, consult an attorney and have a guardian present. During that two hours deputies repeatedly questioned Sisk, seized and looked through his phone without a warrant, performed a gunshot residue test on the teen’s hands and kept him handcuffed in the back of a patrol car for a half hour.
Limestone County Circuit Judge Chad Wise did not rule today on the defense motion to suppress Sisk’s statement. The judge said he will issue an order next week after both sides file final arguments.
The hearing lasted all day and included testimony from five current and former employees of the Limestone County Sheriff’s Office, including the former sheriff, Mike Blakely.
Blakely found himself back in a courtroom on the witness stand today as he is awaiting the results of an appeal in his own criminal case. Blakely was the sheriff of Limestone County for nearly four decades until a jury last summer found him guilty of theft and abuse of power, allegations unrelated to Sisk’s case.
Under questioning by the defense, Blakely testified that deputies initially considered Sisk a witness and therefore didn’t read the teen his rights. Blakely told the court that Sisk didn’t become a suspect until part way through the interrogation. Blakely and several deputies testified that it’s common for law enforcement to handcuff and detain witnesses at crime scenes.
Blakely testified that Sisk had been free to leave that night, even after being handcuffed. He said Sisk was not required to stay in custody until after they read his rights.
“He was free to get out of the truck and leave?” Sizemore asked.
“Yes,” Blakely replied.
But Andrew King, the deputy who handcuffed Sisk and put him in a patrol car just minutes after the authorities got to the scene, said Sisk was detained and not allowed to leave once handcuffed.
The first officer to arrive on the scene also expressed suspicion of Sisk, body camera video shows.
“He’s a little fishy to me,” Deputy Justin Fields told a lieutenant just minutes after first talking to Sisk.
Deputies went to the Sisk family home on Ridge Road in rural Elkmont just before 11 p.m. on Sept. 2, 2019 after the teen called 911. Sisk told the authorities that someone broke into the home and fired five shots, killing his family. His father, 38-year-old John Sisk, his 35-year-old adoptive mother Mary Sisk, and his siblings: 6-year-old Kane, 5-year-old Rorrie, and 6-month-old Colson, died of gunshot wounds.
At the scene, Sisk repeatedly denied killing his family. Even after Blakely took him to an interrogation room at the sheriff’s office Sisk said he heard someone else in the house that night and saw tail lights outside as a car drove away.
Blakely told Sisk his story of someone else killing the family was “bullshit.”
After confessing, the teen apologized.
“I’m sorry I lied to y’all,” Sisk said in the video.
The post ‘I got fed up’: Alabama teen admits killing 5 family members in what lawyers call tainted confession first appeared on Eatory.my.id.
