Man Allegedly Shot Mom In Head Three Times with Crossbow Over Cat

Joseph Alexander was charged with attempted capital murder, aggravated residential burglary, interference with first-degree emergency communications and third-degree domestic battery following the alleged attack.

So … why’d he do it? Reasons involving his cat, apparently.

The alleged incident went down around 6:45 in the morning on March 24 in Rogers, Arkansas. At the time, victim Mary Alexander, Joseph’s mother, allegedly heard the family cat meowing and got up to let it outside.

Mary said she “felt like her eardrum had popped and saw blue,” per a probable cause affidavit via FOX 24, 5 News Online and Law&Crime. “When I did, I got popped two more times; it was an arrow sticking out of my head,” Mary — who survived — reportedly told police later.

After hearing his wife scream, Mary’s husband Mike said he found their son standing over Mary with a crossbow. Per the affidavit, Joseph took their phones and make his father wire him $3,400 via CashApp and Bitcoin, before demanding logins to their bank accounts. When Mike said he didn’t know the info, Joseph allegedly yelled at his mother — still on the ground — for the code.

“You need to give me what is mine, or else I’m going to have to go to the next level,” Joseph allegedly yelled at his father. “I’m going to take things into my own hands, and Dad, you don’t want me to do that.”

Mary later told police she also heard her son tell her husband at one point, “I won’t kill you because that will be a double homicide.” She said that she played dead.

Mike allegedly then got his son into the garage and tried to calm him down. During that interaction, Joseph allegedly said, “Don’t worry about it, Dad, she’s dead.” When they were in the garage, Mary — very much not dead — was able to reach her walker, get out of the house and go to a neighbor’s without being noticed.

The neighbor then called police, before first responders found her at the neighbor’s home with multiple arrows in her face and head.

After leading police on a high-speed pursuit in his father’s car, Joseph allegedly crashed the vehicle and was tased, before taken into custody.

He allegedly told paramedics that he shot his mother, saying he grabbed a “toy crossbow” and fired because she made an upsetting comment while he was petting the cat. He later told investigators he broke into the home through his old bedroom window, before explaining his motive .. or lack thereof.

“I didn’t have a reason; I just lost my cool. I woke up, and I thought that she was, like, going after my cat for some reason,” he reportedly said. “I just, like, literally just stood up and lost my s–t because of my cat.”

“You shot your mom in the head three times because of a cat?” asked the detective, as Joseph allegedly replied, “Ya, like that is the best process I understand of what happened.”

“It did not go in all the way, and she was just laying there screaming, so I pulled it back and did it again,” he’s quoted as saying.

Joseph is being held on $750,000 bond ahead of a June 9 court date.