Updated at 4:30 p.m. ET: Authorities have arrested two suspects in a small coastal Georgia city a day after a baby was killed, and his mom shot.
The mother, Sherry West, told FOX affiliate WAWS-TV that two boys – described as about 10 and 15 years old – came up to her and her 13-month-old son Antonio while she was pushing him in his stroller in Brunswick, Ga., Thursday morning.
Brunswick police announced Friday afternoon that they had arrested a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old, and that they were charging them with murder. The arrests came after SWAT teams had gone door-to-door, searching for clues, and police had checked local school attendance and absentee lists to see if there were any students who hadn't been at school that fit the description of the suspects.
West told WAWS-TV the older boys pointed a handgun at her during the encounter Thursday.
"He (the older boy) said, 'I'm gonna kill you if you don't give me your money,' and I said, 'I swear I don't have any,'" she told WAWS-TV of the encounter.
She said they wouldn't accept no for an answer.
"He says, 'Well, I'm gonna kill your baby,'" she told WAWS-TV, crying. "I put my arms over my baby and he shoves me. And then he shot my baby right in the head."
West was shot in the leg, according to local reports. Brunswick police spokesman Todd Rhodes confirmed she received a non-life-threatening gunshot wound from a handgun.
West was the only eyewitness to the crime, Rhodes said. Residents in the area reported hearing gunshots, but didn't see anything, he said.
"We're not leaving any stone unturned," he said earlier in the day.
Police hadn't located a weapon.
The baby's father, Louis Santiago, said to WAWS-TV, "Why? Why my little one? You know? You feel they could have just taken the pocketbook and go."
Brunswick is about 80 miles south of Savannah.
