DEBARY, Fla. – A Florida sheriff will reportedly recommend a 15-year-old boy be tried as an adult after the teen callously admitted to strangling his mother in a dispute over his grades.
Authorities said Gregory Ramos admitted to killing his mother, Gail Cleavenger, then burying her body and staging a burglary before calling 911.
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Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said the boy killed his mom during a fight over a "D" he had received in school, but the boy, Chitwood said, expressed no remorse for the killing.
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"To watch how cold and callous and calculating he was, I think was probably the most shocking thing for all of us," Chitwood told KSAT's sister station in Orlando, WKMG. "No sign of remorse whatsoever."
Officials with the Sheriff's Office said the 15-year-old called 911 Friday, claiming to have found his home burglarized, his mother nowhere to be found and her car running.
WKMG reported that authorities sensed something was amiss and interviewed Ramos' two 17-year-old friends, Dylan Ceglarek and Brian Porras, who reportedly admitted to helping Ramos stage the burglary and bury Cleavenger's body.
Ramos' two friends were reportedly initially apprehensive, but both eventually agreed to help Ramos. They are also charged in connection with Cleavenger's murder.
Authorities said Ramos wasn't emotional in his confession. He elaborated that he'd thought he had killed her early Friday morning and went outside to grab a wheelbarrow but saw she was still alive when he returned. That's when authorities said he proceeded to strangle her again, this time killing her.
Ironically, Ramos studied criminal justice, was a member of the sheriff's office's police explorer program and aspired to be a homicide detective. Chitwood said Ramos used his knowledge of crime scene analysis to disguise the scene where he had buried his mother's body.
Chitwood told WKMG Ramos enlisted the help of his friends to bury his mother's body in a fire pit where they had previously gone to drink and do drugs, because the ground was "malleable."
Chitwood compared the group's tight-knit bond to that of the Columbine High School shooters from 1999.
The trio is due in court Sunday, according to WKMG.