Posted on 12/29/2005 6:01:41 AM PST by heckler
Elizabeth A. White died Tuesday of a shot to the heart, fired by her 14-year-old son from a pellet gun his grandfather had givenhim for Christmas. The boy pulled the trigger while defending his grandfather, Wichita police said Wednesday. They ruled White's death a justifiable homicide.
White, 40, had a history of drug problems and had spent more time in prison than out over the past 16 years. After a day of sorting out the incident, police released the details of their investigation: White had been living in Salina but was in Wichita over the weekend after her family invited her for Christmas to the house where her parents raised her children. Tuesday afternoon, White returned to the house in the 4000 block of East Brooks, across from the middle school bearing the same name.
Armed with scissors, she repeatedly threatened to kill her 73-year-old father. He tried to fend her off with a cane, while his 68-year-old wife grabbed a kitchen knife. The argument spilled out into the front yard, where the father tripped over a planter and fell. As White moved toward her father with the scissors, the teenage boy stepped onto the front porch with the air rifle his grandfather had given him as a present Sunday. The boy fired once from about 20 feet away, shooting his mother through the heart.
White threw the scissors at her son but they flew onto the roof of the house. She then got in her car and drove to Bluff, where she turned south.
Police suspect White's chest wound caused her to lose control of the car as she approached 27th Street. The car hit two poles, went through a fence, then hit an SUV that had been sitting on the street. White's car jumped the curb and landed in a yard, with the engine on fire.
Emergency services had been notified of a domestic dispute at the house around 2:30 p.m. and then of the accident a few blocks east of Hillside minutes later. Sedgwick County Emergency Medical Services arrived at the scene first, with police close behind. A patrol officer broke the window out of the driver's side of the car, and a paramedic pulled White out of the car. Another paramedic extinguished the fire under the hood. White was unconscious when she was pulled from the car and died at 4:30 p.m. after emergency surgery at a Wichita hospital.
The boy had no idea the air rifle would be capable of delivering such a deadly shot. "This is a tragic situation," said police Capt. Randy Landen.
State correctional and court records show that White began running into trouble with the law over drugs in 1989. She was in prison four years later following a string of drug offenses, along with convictions for prostitution, writing bad checks and making threats. White got out of prison for the last time a little more than a year ago but absconded
Good thing he had ol' Blue.
Geez, what a sad waste of a human life.
I love family stories about the Holidays.
Must have been a Red Rider.
Wow, I guess Red Rider had the right idea.
I think we can all agree that he is lucky that he didn't shoot his eye out.
One of the better-written local-rag-newpaper articles I've read in a very long time.
He must have "pumped" the heck out of that pellet gun.
A Crossman can kill a bluejay or a blackbird with one shot. Also momma I guess.
Good riddance to bad trash.
Prayers for the boy. Notwithstanding the justifiable homicide, he'll be haunted by this incident the rest of his life...
Yeah, I feel bad for the kid. He was probably just trying to get her to back off. Now he's gotta live with this.
I'm however happy he was able to defend his grandfather.
I don't feel sorry for the mother. She caused the incident and left others with little choice.
My heart goes out to the Grandfather and Grandmother and especially to the poor boy. That poor soul has a heavy burden to carry for the rest of his life. I hope they have a good minister to help him.
Prayers for this poor family.
I just did some Googleizing to try and find a pic of mama -no luck, but one Wichita site mentioned that "the pellet was shaped like a bullet with basically an arrow tip on it"...weird.
May (must) have been CO2..........
I wouldn't want that pointed at my heart.
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