Authorities in Tennessee say an 11-year-old boy has been detained on first-degree murder charges after shooting and killing an 8-year-old neighbor with a shotgun because she would not show him her pet puppies.
The gun belonged to the boy’s father. The two kids went to the same school.
Neighbors interviewed by local news reporters identified the victim as Maykayla Dyer.
“Wanting to see a puppy, the little girl laughed and told him no… and that was it,” said neighbor Chasity Arwood.
“Watching the Tennessee football game, heard the bang,” Arwood said. “And then everybody screaming that he shot her baby girl.”
McKayla Dyer (WKRN)
From the Reuters coverage:
The unidentified boy was talking to three girls who were outside the window of his mobile home on Saturday evening and asked one of them if he could see her two new puppies, but the girl refused, according to Jefferson County Sheriff G.W. “Bud” McCoig.
The boy retrieved his father’s 12-gauge shotgun, shot the girl in the chest from the window, and then threw the weapon outside by the girl’s body, McCoig said.
The girl has been identified as Maykayla Dyer, a third-grader at White Pine Elementary School. The boy was in fifth grade at the same school, where counselors were on hand Monday to help the other children deal with the news, McCoig said.
Emergency responders found the girl unresponsive. She was pronounced dead upon arrival at a nearby hospital. The boy remains unidentified due to his age. He was found by authorities at his home, and taken into custody. Both children lived in a trailer park in White Pine, population 2,200, roughly 42 miles (68 km) east of Knoxville.
In the video interview below recorded on Oct. 5, 2015, neighbor and mobile home park manager Chastity Arwoo describes the scene after the shooting in White Pine mobile home park Saturday night. (Video by Michael Patrick/News Sentinel).
