TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office detectives are interviewing the family of a grandmother who was accidentally shot and killed by her daughter early Friday morning.
Deputies responded to 8202 Pinehurst Circle in the Town ‘n’ Country area of Hillsborough County just after midnight Friday, where they found 52-year-old Carolyn Wright had been shot and killed.
Detectives say Wright’s teenage grandchild had come home with a gun. The teen’s mother, who has not been identified, attempted to unloaded the weapon.
Deputies say the woman apparently thought it was empty, but there was still one round in the chamber, and she accidentally fired the weapon striking her mother in the upper body. The grandmother died at the scene.
One of the teenagers in the home panicked, deputies say, and threw the gun into a storm drain down the street following the shooting. Deputies recovered the gun and are currently investigating when it came from.
Deputies say several other family members were home at the time including the great grandmother, grandmother, daughter, two brothers and four children ages 17, 15, 13 and 8 belonging to the daughter.
Since 1999 there have been 10,569 accidental shooting deaths in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Florida, there were 30 accidental shooting deaths in 2014, which is the last year of reported statistics.
