A memorial for 12-year-old Kain Heiland stands along First Avenue in Red Lion where the child was shot in the back on Saturday night.
Search warrants obtained by state police allege a 13-year-old boy shot Kain with a pistol equipped with a laser. It happened after the teen made a joke about Kain’s mother, and the victim told him to shut up, another child told an investigator.
Kain, of the first block of East Prospect Street in Red Lion, died of a gunshot wound to the chest through the back, according to the York County Coroner’s Office.
Troopers found Kain lying on the ground between two residences in the first block of First Avenue when they responded to the reported shooting just before 8:30 p.m. A .380 shell casing was found near the child’s body.
He was pronouced dead at the scene.
State police obtained search warrants over the weekend to gather evidence in the shooting. Investigators seized a .380 Kel-Tec firearm, clothing, photographs and other items. They also obtained a DNA sample from the suspect.
During the investigation, state police interviewed a boy who is a friend of the victim and the suspect. He said all three of them were walking around town when the suspect wanted to return to his home. They went to his residence. The suspect climbed up the balcony to get inside the house, and he returned with a firearm.
The suspect has access to firearms, the boy told police. He had previously shown them to him.
The suspect made a joke about Kain’s mother, and the victim told him to shut up, the boy told police, according to documents.
The suspect shot Kain in the upper back at close range, the search warrant states. The victim made a noise and fell to the ground.
The two checked on Kain and realized he was not moving. They returned to their homes.
State police spoke with other witnesses, including a girl. She had received an image showing the suspect pointing a black handgun with a red laser at a boy’s face. He was covering his face with his hand. The child matches the physical and clothing descriptions of the victim “as he was discovered on scene,” the search warrant states. It is not clear from the document when the image was taken.
State police interviewed the suspect’s father, who told investigators that he has firearms at his home, including a .380 Kel-Tec. He has a hidden gun safe wall mount decorated with an American flag, the search warrant states.
A neighbor contacted him about a shooting in the area. Then his son called him and told him to come home.
The father told investigators that he returned home and verified that his firearms, including the pistol, were secured in the hidden gun safe, the search warrant states.
The suspect was taken to the state police station in Loganville by his father and stepmother.
A makeshift memorial is affixed to the post of a traffic sign by the walkway between the two houses where the boy’s body was found. The first block of First Avenue, which runs from North Main to North Charles, is mostly semi-detached and single-family homes. St. Paul’s Methodist Church, housed in a massive stone building that dates to 1885, dominates the block.
Up the street, Shannon Firestone recalled being outside just before the shooting and hearing some arguing from the direction of the shooting. It didn’t seem unusual to her. She hears arguing among neighbors now and then. She didn’t know there was a shooting until a neighbor told her the next day. She is not acquainted with the suspect or the victim or their families.
That the shooting involved children was especially chilling to Firestone. The eldest of her five children are 9 and 11. “They can’t hang out with friends,” she said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen.