WAYNE COUNTY -- 10-year-old Tristin Kurilla is locked up inside the Wayne County Correctional Facility.
The child is charged as an adult with criminal homicide.
"I think he just thinks he's going for an overnight like any other time. I don't know if he understands where he's going or where he's being housed," said defense attorney Bernie Brown.
Investigators said Kurilla hit a 90-year-old woman at his grandfather's home over the weekend, killing her.
According to court papers, Kurilla admitted he became angry with Helen Novak when she yelled at him, but he told police he never meant to kill her.
"This is a 10-year-old defendant. That's not something I've seen. I'm not sure how many times that's been seen in Pennsylvania or not," said Wayne County District Attorney Janine Edwards.
Joseph D'Andrea is a defense attorney in Lackawanna County.
"The district attorney claims that because this child was charged with a homicide, this is what she had to do. The way to properly handle it, I think, is don't charge him with a homicide yet. They could have charged him with some other offenses which wouldn't have required him to be put in the jail with the adult offenders," he said.
In recent years, D'Andrea filed a motion for convicted child killer Joseph Aulisio to have him re-sentenced.
Aulisio was 16 years old when he was convicted as an adult to killing an 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother in Lackawanna County.
D'Andrea says the recent case in Wayne County is much different.
"There was such a rush to judgment to have an arrest on a homicide. There are so many avenues and other alternatives that we could have had to even take this child's liberty away. It could have been done in a juvenile setting and it didn't have to be done this way," D'Andrea said. "I'm amazed and fascinated and really dumbfounded that it's been done and I would hope that it would be undone."
Brown said he will ask a judge to release Kurilla to the custody of his father.