Moses Kamin, Oakland Teenager, Charged In Adoptive Parents' Murders

OAKLAND, Calif. -- A 15-year-old boy was charged as an adult Tuesday with two counts of murder in the strangling of his adoptive parents – a jail psychologist and a clinic physician's assistant whose bodies were found stuffed in the trunk of the family car.

Moses Kamin appeared in Superior Court for an arraignment that was continued to Wednesday, when he's expected to be assigned a lawyer. He did not enter a plea.

"Bob's strength was dealing with people in jail, who are in terrible situations and very demanding," Bruce Kamin said. "It's too bad that his own son couldn't benefit from that."

Officers found the bodies of Kamin, 54, and Susan Poff, 50, under blankets in the back of a PT Cruiser parked outside their house in the city's Lake Merritt district. Investigators believe the teenager had tried unsuccessfully to set the car ablaze.

Moses Kamin was arrested the next day after police said he gave a confession.

Officer Phong Tran told the Tribune the boy may have been motivated by tension with his parents over his two recent suspensions from school. He may have feared being disciplined for his latest suspension on Wednesday, Tran said.

Moses, who has a black belt in karate, first strangled his mother Thursday after the two got into an argument about the suspension, police said. He then stashed her body and waited for his father to come home from work and attacked him from behind, they said.

Kamin, a psychologist for the San Francisco jail system, and Poff, who treated homeless patients at San Francisco's Housing and Urban Health Clinic, adopted the boy in 2002.

Comments

[BlakTXConser]

10:48 PM on 02/06/2012

I had to go to Dailymail(UK) and insidebayarea sites to get the details of this kid twice running away to join Occupy Oakland and being suspended for a second time this school year from his charter school. These details where available by Feb.1st. Any chance of you'd update this story to include those details? Guess all of that is just irrelevant to you guys.... unless he'd been skipping school for Tea Party rallies.

[K Ayala]

07:20 PM on 02/06/2012

Surprise! You failed to mention some important facts. The parents were not happy with him spending so much time with occupy Oakland. He was hanging around those people and not going to school. Do you think that OO's violent messages of hate could have pushed him in this direction? I am positive if he had been spending time with TEA party people you would have jumped to that connection (even though the TEA Party people do not promote violence or hate).

[Catsun]

07:23 AM on 02/01/2012

What a troubled society we live in.