RACINE, Wis. — A Wisconsin teenager is being charged as an adult in the stabbing death of his mother and prosecutors say he was inspired by a recent documentary about the Menendez brothers.
Reed Gelinskey, 15, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the death of his mother. Prosecutors claim he also planned to kill his father.
The neighborhood where Reed Gelinskey allegedly murdered his mother. (Scripps News Milwaukee)
Gelinskey made his first court appearance Thursday afternoon over Zoom, where the court commissioner set a $1 million cash bond. His mother was identified as Suzanne Gelinskey, and was confirmed by Racine Unified School District to be a 4K Educational Assistant.
The gruesome discovery was made after officers were dispatched on March 4 for a report of a juvenile who stabbed his mother to death.
A caller told dispatch she had received a Snapchat photo showing a woman, later identified as Suzanne, lying face-up on her back and another image with blood on the floor, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday.
Reed allegedly told the caller he needed help and had stabbed his mother.
That night, according to the complaint, Reed watched the Menendez brothers documentary on Netflix after dinner. He said his inspiration for the stabbing “came to him while he watched the shotgun scene.”
He then allegedly concocted a plan to kill his mother, hiding his sleep medication after she went upstairs in an effort to lure her back down to look for it.
When she came downstairs, the complaint says, he struck her over the head twice with a dumbbell in an attempt to knock her out so he could stab her with a kitchen knife. Reed allegedly threw her to the ground and stabbed her three times in the chest and twice in the neck, despite her attempts to fight him off.
According to the complaint, the mother asked him “why,” and he replied, “pain.”
After the attack, Reed told investigators he contacted a friend on Snapchat, told her to call police, and sat on the floor until he heard sirens.
FILE–Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez leave the courtroom in Santa Monica, Calif., in this Aug. 6, 1990 file photo. The brothers were found were found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy Wednesday, March 20, 1996, of the August 1989 murders of their parents in their second trial in the Van Nuys Superior Court in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
When officers arrived, they saw Reed exiting the house. As they approached, he dropped a brown and silver kitchen knife at the front stoop, saying, “She is dead,” and “She is dead from what I did,” and telling officers to kill him.
Officers discover the gruesome scene
Inside the home, officers found Suzanne near the front of the house with apparent stab wounds and blood-soaked clothing. They attempted life-saving measures, but she could not be revived.
Officers recovered a kitchen knife dropped by Reed, with blood on the blade and handle. Another kitchen knife was found near the kitchen sink with a drop of blood on the handle and blade, along with a silver adjustable dumbbell bar near a cabinet by the refrigerator.
The complaint states Reed also had plans to kill his father with a hammer when he came home from work but “could not find one large enough.” According to the complaint, the teen came home from school that day “feeling depressed and having an urge to kill his parents.”
He also told investigators he had been taking his brother’s anxiety medication for about a month, saying the medication “does not help his anxiety, but it makes him high and he enjoys that.”
This story was originally published by Scripps News Milwaukee, an E.W. Scripps Company.
