A Missouri mom is facing major charges after allegedly killing her teenage son, including murder. The woman, Krista Roy, admitted that the killing of her son was intentional but didn’t specify why when questioned. Despite retrieving the gun from an ex, her intentions were never questioned. Police were only alerted to the crime after her son’s friends became concerned they couldn’t reach the teen. Even though mental health wasn’t mentioned in the initial investigation, it may have been a factor.
According to court documents, St. Charles police were asked to perform a welfare check for a teenage boy by his friends on September 29, 2025, KSDK reported. The friends said they hadn’t heard from him in a couple days, calling it “highly unusual.”
“They had dropped him off about 2 o’clock in the morning, I think on Saturday, and hadn’t been able to get in touch with him. So they asked the police to go by and perform a welfare check to make sure that everything was OK,” Prosecuting Attorney Joe McCulloch said, per the outlet.
Officers who reported to the home of the boy’s mother, Krista Roy, on September 29, noticed a foul odor.
When they entered the home, they found her son, 16-year-old Carter Bennett, dead in his bed. The boy was covered in gunshot and stab wounds, with a knife lying in the bed right next to him, per KSDK.
Police officers learned that Roy had attempted suicide later on September 29 and was hospitalized at the time. After she was released, she was taken into police custody for questioning.
“She confessed that she had obtained a pistol with the intent to kill her son and her self and that she shot him several times while he was sleeping in his bed,” McCulloch said. “She then laid down with him because he was still alive, was caressing him and he was calling out her name, calling ‘mommy, mommy.’”
Roy told police that she got up from the bed to get a knife, stabbing the boy several times to put him “out of his pain.” When police asked her if she wanted to kill her son, she told them “Yeah,” KSDK reported.
Officers went to search the home of Roy’s ex-husband, whom she said she got the gun from. There, they found the gun, but they did not give insight into when or how it was returned to the home.
According to the “extremely close” friends who requested a welfare check, Bennett “loved life” and was not suicidal, the outlet reported. They described Roy as “strange,” saying she wasn’t very involved in his life.
A news release from the St. Charles Police Department stated that Roy was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action. She is being held on a $1 million dollar cash-only bond.
If you suspect child abuse, you can call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 (1-800-4-A-Child) or go to Childhelp.org. The hotline is available 24/7.
