A 19-year-old Dewey man has been charged with murder after reportedly beating his grandmother to death.
According to reports, Donald Wayne Shimko called for an ambulance at approximately 4:30 a.m. on July 20, saying that he woke up to find his grandmothercovered in blood. He said he tried to revive her, but called 9-1-1 when he was unable to do so.
Police arrived to find the body of 64-year-old Alvita Shimko lying on a couch, her face covered in blood.
Her body was transported to a local funeral home after the Oklahoma Medical Examiner waived jurisdiction, and it was there that an employee discovereda 3-inch hole in the woman's head, just above her right ear. Investigators determined the head injury could not be the result of a fall.
Although a family member told reporters her cousin "isn't capable"of murder, he reportedly confessed to hitting his grandmother with a baseball bat. However, the teen says he was not trying to kill his grandmother;rather, he was playing a video game and got angry with the game before "blacking out" and later awakening to find himself standing over his bloodygrandmother, holding a bat in his hands.
Aside from claiming a video-game induced blackout, no motive has been established in the case.
Dewey police arrested Donald Shimko on a second degree murder charge some 12 hours after he called 9-1-1. He is held on $500,000 bond. When WashingtonCounty prosecutors formally filed a charge against Shimko, the charge was upgraded to first degree murder. If convicted, he faces life in prison orlife without parole.
