Boy, 5, Shoots Girl Dead at Birthday Party With Gun He Thought Was a TOY

A 7-year-old girl was killed at a birthday party in South Carolina Saturday night after a 5-year-old boy accidentally fired a gun while looking for his own “gun”—a toy, authorities say.

Lexington County Sheriff James Metts says the boy’s mother gave him permission to retrieve a toy gun out of a car’s trunk at a home in Gaston; except a real gun was also in the trunk, and he picked it up by mistake. “When he was fooling around trying to get his toy gun out, he accidentally pulled the trigger of the real gun while it was in the trunk,” Metts tells WLTX.
Deputies say the bullet went through the car, and fragments hit Juliet Lynch in the chest. She died a short time later; another 5-year-old was hit with fragments in the arm.
Metts says the real gun belonged to the boyfriend of the boy’s mother and she did not know it was in the trunk. The sheriff says charges could be filed in the shooting.