Mental Exam For Michigan Teen Charged With Killing Mom Over Puppy

MASON (WWJ/AP) - A young Lansing-area man charged with killing his mother will get a mental competency exam.

Experts will determine if 19-year-old Andrew Willson understands the charges and can assist his lawyers. A judge signed off on the exam Thursday.

His mother, 51-year-old Lisa Willson, was found shot in the back of the head at their Wheatfield Township home on Sept. 8. Her son told initially told police that he had returned home and found the body. However, investigators determined that no one else had been in the house; and under further questioning, Willson allegedly admitted to the murder.

According to a report by the Lansing State Journal, Ingham County Sheriff's detective Charles Buckland testified that, just hours before her death, Lisa Willson told her son that a puppy he'd found a few weeks earlier would have to go to his father's home in Dansville.

The teen allegedly told detectives that he waited until late that night before taking a .22 Magnum rifle from a locked cabinet. He then went into his mother's room and shot her in the back of the head as she slept, Buckland said.

Defense attorney Patrick O'Keefe suggested that Willson didn't truly realize the what he was doing, as high doses of chemotherapy years ago may have affected the teen's judgment.

The Lansing State Journal says the next hearing won't be held until Jan. 8.

© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.