An 8-year-old boy suspected of murdering his father and another man in a remote northern Arizona town admitted the crime in a video interview with police which surfaced Wednesday.

The case has shocked investigators in St John`s, 170 miles (274 kilometers) north of Phoenix, since it came to light on November 5 when the boy appeared at a neighbor`s house and reported his father and a boarder shot to death.

In the video of his police interview given a day after he was taken into custody, the boy tells officers he shot his father because he was `suffering.`

`Did you shoot your dad?` a detective asked the boy.

`I think so,` said the boy, whose name is not being published by AFP.

During the interview, the boy sat in a chair wearing pajama pants. His face was blurred on camera.

In a high-pitched child`s voice, his story changed every few moments for 36 minutes, at first denying everything, then claiming a car pulled away from the house before he found his father and the boarder wounded.

Then he claimed he`d shot his father, 29, and boarder Timothy Romans, 39, to end their suffering.

`I`m having a little bit of a problem here,` Apache County Sheriff`s Commander Matrese Avila told him. `I think you need to start telling us the truth ... We need to know the truth, sweetie. It`s important.`

The boy later admitted shooting the men twice each.

`I think, um, I think I shot my dad because he was suffering,` the boy said, telling detectives he wasn`t angry at his father nor was he in trouble at home. Defense lawyers have said they will seek to have the boy`s confession ruled as inadmissible, arguing he had not been read his rights following his arrest.