A man is believed to have hit his mother in the head with a hammer during an argument and then confessed to a friend on a gaming platform shortly after the incident.
“I am in trouble and I need your help,” Robert Babin, 24, allegedly wrote on Wednesday after the crime, according to court documents reviewed by local ABC affiliate KTRK. “I just assaulted my mother with a hammer, I got angry, I don’t know what to do, I can’t go to prison.”
“I have to get rid of the hammer and destroy the evidence before the police get there,” he’s said. “I do not want to end up on Death Row. I struck her several times on the head and side. “She is barely breathing.”
According to local Fox affiliate KRIV, Babin’s gaming friend convinced him to call the police.
However, the friend reportedly only discovered Babin’s messages about two hours after the suspect sent them, causing the victim to suffer for an extended period of time.
According to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, Babin has been arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. If convicted as charged, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
Police 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 communicate.
She was airlifted to a nearby hospital in serious condition, where she remained the next day.
Babin initially told authorities that he had left his mother napping at home while he went to the store and returned to find her confused by the police presence, according to KTRK.
The alleged messages to the friend, if sent by Babin, would refute that claim.
Babin was still detained in the Harris County Jail as of Friday.
