The troubled 17-year-old accused of shooting his city commissioner father last month faces a first-degree murder charge.
Jason Beckman, son of South Miami commissioner Jay Beckman, had originally been charged with manslaughter with a firearm, after he reportedly shot his father point blank with a shotgun while the elder Beckman showered.
A grand jury handed down the elevated charge of first-degree murder last week, according to the county clerk's Web site.
The 17-year-old has been locked up in the Miami-Dade Juvenile Detention Center since the shooting in mid-April. The younger
Beckman told police that he had just wanted to show the shotgun to his father, but he slipped and fell, causing the gun to fire.
But friends and neighbors of the family say the teen had talked about killing his father, and he may have suffered from a mild form of autism that made him shy, awkward and angry.
"Jason confessed to me on occasion wanting to take his father's life. Detailed plans on how to go about it," neighbor Janelle Syren said. "It felt as though he'd really thought it through as if he really wanted something like this and it's very disturbing...very unnerving. I wish I'd said something before."
