What made Raymond Shaw snap?

More details today in the Sunday shooting of an 11-year-old boy in north Houston: The accused gunman, 58-year-old Raymond Lee Shaw, was reportedly in a deep depression and told a friend before the shooting that he was thinking about killing himself. Ron Zenon, a friend of Shaw's, said Shaw became depressed after his wife died of a heart attack three years ago. Sunday afternoon, Shaw — who is unable to speak because of throat cancer — gave Zenon a note that said, "I'm really depressed today. It's Mother's Day. I miss my wife and I feel like killing myself." A couple of hours later, Zenon heard a gunshot while he was working in his backyard: "I said, 'Uh-oh, Raymond must have killed himself," Zenon told the Chronicle.

But he was wrong — instead, Shaw had shot Jonathan Dixson, a fifth-grader at Hill Intermediate School. According to reports, Dixson and some friends were playing with Shaw's youngest son when they got caught in a rain shower. Shaw's son invited the boys to his house so they could dry their clothes, and Shaw told police he got upset when he returned home to find the kids there. He said Dixson pushed and cursed at him when he was leaving the house, so Shaw got his 20-gague shotgun, followed Dixson out into the 8600 block of Iron Liege, and shot him. Zenon and a friend grabbed the shotgun before Shaw could shoot again, and Zenon said he heard Shaw's son asking, "Dad, Dad, Dad, why'd you kill him?"

What's unclear is what made Shaw snap and shoot Dixson. He told police the boy was rude to him — not that that's any defense for murder — but Dixson's sister Tiara Williams, who was in Shaw's house at the time, said that wasn't true. According to WIlliams, Shaw began making hand gestures at the kids indicating that he wanted them to leave his house, but Shaw's son pushed him out of the room and closed the door. Shaw then came into the room again, she said, but his son again pushed him out. When the kids left the house, Williams said, Shaw followed them, and she heard Shaw's son yelling at his father: "No, Dad, don't do that." Then she heard a loud noise and Shaw's son came back: "He said, 'My father just shot your brother,' so then I started screaming," she said. "I ran over there and saw by brother laying on the ground." Dixson died in the street a few minutes later.

Vivian Phillips, who lives in the same nearby apartment complex where Dixson lived, said one of the kids told her it seemed Shaw didn't think the shotgun was loaded. But the Chronicle reports that police believe Shaw fired at least one shot, then reloaded the gun; when Zenon got the gun away from Shaw, he found another shell inside. "He snapped," Zenon said. "It's like he was insane. I think he was going to shoot someone else."

Shaw has been charged with murder, and his bond was set at $50,000.