MAHANOY TOWNSHIP -- An apparent fight over an iPhone landed a mother in the hospital and her teenage son in jail.
Investigators in Schuylkill County believe a 15-year-old boy tried to kill his mother after she tried to take his iPhone from him. The injuries to the mother were bad enough that she was taken to a hospital.
Police have filed attempted homicide charges against Joseph Grutza, 15, and the teen from just outside Mahanoy City is charged as an adult after investigators say he tried to kill his mother for wanting to take his iPhone.
Grutza was pounding his head against a wall as his mother lay on the floor, struggling to breathe and speak. That's what Mahanoy Township's police chief says he found when he arrived at the home around 9 p.m. Monday along Mahanoy City Road.
The boy's father was outside yelling, "He's beating his mother! I don't know what to do with him!"
Inside, the chief reports the house was torn apart. When Grutza's mother Kymberly was able to speak she told the chief it all started when she told her son she was going to take his iPhone.
"He grabbed me and bit me on my back. He then started beating me and took the rope from my robe and placed it around my neck and started suffocating me.
"He then placed his hands around my windpipe and kept repeating, 'I'm going to kill you!'"
"From what we gathered, she wanted to talk to him about his iPhone and look at it," said Mahanoy Township Police Chief Brandon Alexander. "That's how it all started."
Kymberly Grutza was taken to the hospital.
Joseph Grutza is charged as an adult. He's in the Schuylkill County Jail, unable to post the $150,000 bail.
