BOGALUSA, La. — A 13-year-old boy died last Friday in what Washington Parish Sheriff Jason Smith calls a “terrible accident,” shot in the neck with a pellet gun while playing with a neighbor.
It was an all-too-familiar tragedy for this community — and for the family involved.
The boy was the son of a woman who, as a 13-year-old herself and while pregnant with him in February 2012, witnessed the mysterious shooting death of her close friend in their family home. That earlier case, long considered accidental, is now officially undetermined after new forensic reviews and an exhumation last year prompted by a WWL Louisiana investigation.
‘A freak accident’
Sheriff Smith said in the accident that just happened Oct. 10, the victim was target-shooting with his friend next door using pellet gu