Police officers in Cedar Rapids arrested a 17-year-old boy on Thursday for allegedly killing both of his parents. The teen faces two counts of first degree murder and has been charged as an adult due to the seriousness of the crimes.
At 2 a.m. on Thursday, police officers received a call about a suspicious person at a suburban home at 361 Carnaby Drive NE in Cedar Rapids. When they arrived, officers say they found a 17-year-old boy sitting outside the house, covered in blood. Inside, they found the bodies of his parents, 42-year-old Casey Orton and 41-year-old Misty Scott Slade.
According to a criminal complaint, the teen told officers he had “killed his parents” in order to “take charge of his life." The teen, who IPR is not identifying because he is a juvenile, told officers he stabbed his parents with a knife and later used an ax to kill his mother when she seemed to have survived the first attack.
The teen has been transported to the Linn County Detention Center and is being held on a $2 million bond. According to court filings, a preliminary hearing in the case has been scheduled for October 22.
This is the second time in recent months that a young man has been accused of killing both their parents in Cedar Rapids. Twenty-year-old University of Iowa sophomore Alexander Jackson was arrested in June and accused of fatally shooting his mother, father and sister at their house in northeast Cedar Rapids.
According to a criminal complaint, Jackson told officers that his father had recently told him he needed to find a job or move out of the family home.
