The teenager who had shot his parents

[Bassim]

I am wondering if my sentences are grammatically correct.

The teenager who had shot his parents seemed to be an ordinary child, shy and timid. His next-door neighbour told the journalists he could have been his son.

 

[tzfujimino]

His next-door neighbour told the journalists he could have been his son.

Those two words in bold are confusing for me.

 

[Bassim]

There is nothing confusing in my sentence. The neighbour is talking about the teenager.

 

[teechar]

If you're not talking about specific/previously mentioned journalists, remove the definite article.

 

[Matthew Wai]

There is nothing confusing in my sentence. The neighbour is talking about the teenager.

The teenager's next-door neighbour told journalists the teenager could have been the neighbour's son.

Do you mean that?

 

[teechar]

What else could it mean?

 

[tzfujimino]

I'm sorry to have confused YOU, Bassim, because of my poor reading comprehension.
May I ask what you mean by the quoted sentence in my post #2, please? The "could have been" part is also confusing for me.

 

[Bassim]

tzfujimino,

I don't understand what is that confusing you. My sentence is clear. The neighbour is talking to journalists. He is talking about a possibility. The boy was not his son, but he could have been because he was old enough to be.

 

[Matthew Wai]

The teenager's next-door neighbour told journalists he was old enough to be the teenager's father.

Do you mean that?

 

[tzfujimino]

So, if I understand your explanation correctly, the neighbour said something like this to the journalist:
If I had a son, he would be as old as the teenager.

Am I correct?

 

[teechar]

It's not just about age. The neighbour is saying that he had viewed the teenager as an ordinary boy.

 

[Bassim]

No. You have misunderstood my sentence.
A tragedy happened. The boy killed his parents. Journalists interviewed the neighbour. He, of course, felt sorry for the boy, and therefore he said, "he could have been my son." He used this phrase to describe how he felt for the boy.

 

[tzfujimino]

[STRIKE]The same kind of tragedy could have happened to his (the neighbour's) own son.

A bit closer?[/STRIKE]

(Edit)
I understand.
Sorry about this mess, Bassim.

 

[Bassim]

tzfujimino

teechar has explained to you in his post better than I can. It's not about age or the neighbour's son. He just uses this expression to describe the teenager as an ordinary boy. There was nothing that could indicate the teenager would commit the crime.

 

[emsr2d2]

The easiest way to make this clear would be to use a direct quote.

The next-door neighbour told the journalist, "I'm shocked. He was just an ordinary boy, just like my son!"

 

[GoesStation]

No. You have misunderstood my sentence.
A tragedy happened. The boy killed his parents. Journalists interviewed the neighbour. He, of course, felt sorry for the boy, and therefore he said, "he could have been my son." He used this phrase to describe how he felt for the boy.

A common way to express such a relationship is ​He was like a son to me.

 

[Bassim]

GoesStation,

I did not want to say "He was like a son to me." In my post above I just tried to explain to tzfujimino what my sentence meant. Unfortunately, I am unable to explain something which is clear for any native speaker of English.
My sentence was clear from the beginning. Any native speaker would understand it without any misunderstanding. ,
teechar has already explained what I wanted to say.