Investigators, lawyers and a judge have now each added a different layer to the account of what happened inside the home.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — What began as a midday call about a woman shot in the head at a home on Pine Avenue has become an adult murder prosecution against her 14-year-old son, with the case now headed to district court after a judge found enough evidence to support the charge.
The timeline has moved quickly. Deputies responded on March 7, found Theresa McIntosh, 41, alive but gravely wounded, and a juvenile was taken into custody at the scene. McIntosh died March 8. Within days, investigators publicly tied the case to Havoc Leone. By March 18, a circuit court judge had refused to lower his bond and had bound the first-degree murder case over for further proceedings. Each step added new detail, but also sharpened the disputes over intent, abuse claims and what exactly happened in the minutes before the gun fired.
The first layer was the emergency response. Sheriff’s officials said deputies reached the home in the 2300 block of Pine Avenue at 12:47 p.m. and found a visible gunshot wound to the back of McIntosh’s head. She was transported to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center and then flown to UCHealth in Fort Collins, Colorado. At that point, authorities publicly said only that a juvenile had been taken into custody and that the investigation was active, with no ongoing threat to the public. The limited early statement reflected both the suspect’s age and the sensitivity of a case still being sorted out inside a family home.
The second layer came from investigators’ reconstruction of the scene. They said Leone first told deputies his mother had killed herself, then later gave a different account. In that version, she was on the floor doing a puzzle when he threw a notebook toward her and shot her once in the back of the head as she leaned forward. Investigators said the notebook held the password to a tablet at the center of an argument that day. They also said Leone had already taken McIntosh’s Taurus 9 mm pistol from her vehicle about a week earlier after another dispute, this one over his D in math, and hidden the gun in a boot in his room.
The third layer emerged in court, where the same facts were given rival meanings. Prosecutors argued that the hidden gun, the earlier thoughts of killing his mother and the timing of the shot all point to premeditation. Assistant District Attorney Kelly Strickland said Leone had carried anger toward his mother and acted when the moment presented itself. Defense attorney Jonathan Foreman used the hearing to paint a very different picture, describing Leone as a vulnerable child exposed to degrading treatment from a mentally ill mother. He argued the evidence fit a lesser charge and asked the court to reduce the teen’s $500,000 cash-only bond. Judge Sean Chambers declined both requests from the defense and allowed the first-degree case to continue.
A fourth layer comes from the people around the scene. Investigators said Leone’s father was in the basement playing video games while wearing noise-canceling headphones when he heard what sounded like a pop. He came upstairs and found McIntosh wounded. Authorities said the father later told investigators he did not want to believe his son had shot her and that it would have been easier to accept suicide. Those statements do not decide the charge, but they show how disorienting the first moments after the shooting were for the only other adult said to be in the house.
What remains unresolved is broader than the physical sequence. The public record now includes allegations that McIntosh called Leone names, including “retarded,” and that arguments at home could become intense. It also includes allegations that Leone told investigators he had thought about murdering his mother before and did not know how to tell her how much he hated her. Both sets of claims are likely to matter as the case develops. One goes to motive and premeditation. The other goes to provocation, development and the defense effort to move the case away from the most serious theory available to prosecutors.
The prosecution now stands at a more formal stage, but not a final one. Leone has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder, his bond remains unchanged, and the case is awaiting district court arraignment. The next milestone is not another dramatic factual revelation from the scene. It is the courtroom process ahead, where lawyers will test whether the state’s timeline and the defense account of the home can coexist, or whether one of them will dominate the way a jury eventually sees the killing.
Author note: Last updated April 7, 2026.