A Memphis mom who shot a 20-year-old man hiding under her daughter’s bed will soon be reunited with her family.
Kendra Scott will walk free after a judge set a bond of $100,000 during a hearing on Tuesday, July 21. Scott is ordered to stay away from the victim’s family.
Scott, 36, is charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Rodderius Morton on July 16. The incident happened around 1:30 a.m. at Scott’s home in the 3000 block of Travis Road in Memphis.
Police said Scott’s 13-year-old daughter invited Morton over after her mother left for work. Scott was notified of an intruder in her house and she returned home.
She started pounding on the bedroom door and yelling, “Who’s at my house?!” the arrest affidavit states.
Scott had said that if she “sees a boy in my house I will put a hole in his a*s,” the daughter later told police. The minor said she was afraid to open the door because her mother had a gun.
The teen eventually let her mother into the room, where Scott found Morton hiding under her bed. “Get out of my house b**ch,” Scott screamed, while following Morton out the front door. Her daughter and a neighbor heard a single gunshot.
The neighbor told police he saw an armed Scott standing over a man’s body on the lawn. Morton was shot once in the back of the head.
Scott told arriving officers: “I did what I had to do.”
Experts say the shooting does not qualify under Tennessee’s Castle Doctrine, which allows a person to use deadly force in their home if they have a “reasonable belief that there is an imminent danger of death, serious bodily injury, or grave sexual abuse.”
Woman accused of shooting man under child's bed appears in court
A Shelby County judge set a $100,000 bond for Kendra Scott, the 36-year-old Memphis mother accused of fatally shooting a man found hiding under her 13-year-old daughter's bed, during her initial court appearance on… pic.twitter.com/JM28QPQ2DC— American Crime Stories (@AmericanCrime01) July 21, 2026