An 8-year-old boy arrived at an Arizona court in handcuffs today after being charged with shooting dead his father and one of his friends.

The child sat alongside his mother fidgeting and rocking in his chair as the judge ordered mental health and competency evaluations to be carried out. Police confirmed at the weekend that they were looking into whether the boy had been abused.

Vincent Romero, 29, the child’s father, and Timothy Romans, 39, his roommate and co-worker at a local construction company, were shot with a .22 calibre rifle last week.

Mr Romero, an avid hunter, was buried in a casket with a camouflaged lid yesterday. About 600 people filled the rural St. John the Baptist Catholic Church for the funeral Mass in the town of St Johns, 170 miles north-east of Phoenix.

The two men were found dead inside Mr Romero’s home last Wednesday, one at the entrance and one in an upstairs room. Police have charged Mr Romero’s son as a juvenile with two counts of premeditated murder.

“Without exception, the entire community has been affected by this tragic loss,” said Ross Overson, mayor of the town with a population of around 4,000 in eastern Arizona. “No community can begin to understand how something like this could happen.”

The Very Rev. John Paul Sauter, St John’s Roman Catholic priest, has revealed that Mr Romero asked him about training his son how to use a gun.

“He wanted to make sure the kid wasn’t afraid of guns, knew how to handle it,” the priest said. “He was just too young. . . That child, I don’t think he knows what he did, and it was brutal.”

The boy’s stepmother, Tiffany, had suggested he have a BB gun, the priest said, but it is thought that his father taught him how to kill prairie dogs with a rifle.

Mr Romero, who had full custody of his son, married Tiffany in September. The child’s mother lives in Mississippi, according to officials. Police said the boy’s stepmother was not home at the time of the shooting.

Prosecutors said there was no record of any complaints filed about the boy with Arizona Child Protective Services and that the youngster had no disciplinary record at school.

Much of today's hearing focused on court-ordered mental health and competency evaluations of the boy. Judge Michael Roca gave defence lawyers until Friday to either find an expert to evaluate the boy’s competency or to agree to one suggested by the prosecutors.

Benjamin Brewer, for the defence, also asked for access to the crime scene and filed a complaint that police questioned the schoolboy without representation from a parent or lawyer and did not advise him of his rights.

Times Recommends

• Peter Moore’s family say they can smile again
• Ambition always comes before a fall
• Putin: Russia needs more weapons to counter US