Posted on 05/15/2014 5:32:48 AM PDT by Gamecock
HONEA PATH --- A 25-year-old man is dead after he was shot Wednesday while wearing a bulletproof vest as he and his friends gathered in a garage on Broadmouth Church Road in Honea Path.
Blake Randall Wardell died at the scene after he was shot in the chest with a small-caliber gun, Anderson County Deputy Coroner Don McCown said. McCown said Wardell and about eight to 10 other people were gathered at the home when the shooting happened.
There was no evidence at the scene of a fight or struggle, McCown said.
"It wasn't a fight. They were actually going to take a shot at the vest," McCown said. "They were going to shoot the victim with the vest on. And he was shot in the chest, just above the vest."
McCown said the bulletproof vest appeared to be about 10 to 15 years old.
The shooting happened at around 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Deputies arrived at the home to find a man lying in the garage with a gunshot wound to the chest, Anderson County Sheriff's Lt. Sheila Cole said. Cole said people were performing CPR on the victim, and paramedics were called to the scene, Cole said.
Anderson County sheriff's investigators have charged Taylor Ann Kelly, 18, of Woodvale Road in Anderson, with involuntary manslaughter in connection with Wardell's death, Cole said.
In the warrant issued for Kelly's arrest, deputies state that they believe Wardell put on the vest and asked Kelly to shoot him. The bullet passed through the edge of the vest, and Wardell was hit in the chest. A handgun was used in the shooting, according to the warrant.
Wardell and Kelly knew each other as friends, Cole said.
The investigation is still ongoing but Kelly has been charged and is being held at the Anderson County Detention Center. Bond has not been set.
Cole said, based on state law, involuntary manslaughter is defined as the reckless disregard of the safety of others. A person convicted of involuntary manslaughter may be imprisoned for up to five years.
(Other sources report she is being held on $10,000 bail. GC)
Apparently the vest wasn't involved: "... And he was shot in the chest, just above the vest."
Maybe Taylor needs more range time.
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you think the vest not being hit means, in liability cases, that the vest was not involved?
You don’t know tort lawyers .
Play stupid games... RIP.
Everything being the same, he could have removed the vest and still died.
Dude you totally missed my point, my sarcastic humor mixed with a real commentary on the absurd tort climate we live in today.
Sorry.
So, out of everyone at the scene she was Voted the Best Shot? I think the Election was fixed.
Macabre humor. I feel guilty for laughing, but that is funny!
I received my honorable discharge from the USN a couple of days prior to my twenty first birthday. At twenty three I had a Navy electronics certificate and was working in a manufacturing engineering department placing orders for custom made tooling with outside tool and die shops, scheduling work for the in plant tool and die shop and ordering perishable tools for the in plant shop. I was driving a new Mustang and earning a salary equivalent to over sixty thousand annually in today’s money. Of course in those days I was considered a failure...I was still single!
The above is no exaggeration, people thought in those days that I should have had a wife and at least one child by that age.
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