Inset: Robert Babin (Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez). Background: 18700 Block of Holly Way in Harris County, Texas (Google Maps).
A man is suspected of hitting his mother with a hammer during a dispute, later admitting his crime to a friend on a gaming platform after the incident occurred.
“I am in trouble and I need your help,” Robert Babin, 24, reportedly wrote on Wednesday after the event, as detailed in court documents examined by local ABC affiliate KTRK. “I just attacked my mother with a hammer. I got upset, and I don’t know what to do. I can’t go to jail.”
“I need to dispose of the hammer and destroy the evidence before the police arrive,” he allegedly mentioned. “I don’t want to end up on Death Row. I struck her a few times on the head and the side. She’s barely breathing.”
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Authorities in Houston said the gaming friend convinced Babin to call the police, according to local Fox affiliate KRIV. However, the friend reportedly only noticed Babin’s messages about two hours after the suspect sent them, leaving the victim to suffer for an extended period of time.
Babin was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. If convicted as charged, he faces up to 2o years in prison.
Police reportedly arrived at the 18700 block of Holly Way in Harris County, just west of Houston, on Wednesday to find the 61-year-old woman in the backyard, bleeding from the head, and unable to speak.
She was airlifted to a nearby hospital in serious condition, where she remained the following day.
Babin initially told authorities he had left his mother napping at the house while he went to the store — and returned to be confused by the police presence, according to KTRK.
The alleged messages to the friend, if it was indeed Babin who sent them, would debunk that claim.
Babin remained detained in the Harris County Jail as of Friday.
