Mom Admits to Shooting, Killing Daughter, 16, While Attempting to Save Kittens
An Oklahoma woman is facing prison time after she pleaded guilty in federal court earlier this week to accidentally shooting and killing her teen daughter.
Sixteen-year-old Laramie Moffett was outside of the family’s northeastern Oklahoma property trying to protect kittens from a stray dog on their Nowata property when 43-year-old Amanda Myrene Fields Moffett opened fire.
The mother said she did not check to see if her daughter Laramie was outside when she pointed a handgun in the direction of the dog at night and opened fire.
Tragically, Laramie was struck by a stray bullet and died, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma announced in a news release.
The incident happened on Oct. 5, 2018, but Moffett only entered an agreement in court on Monday of this week.
She pleaded guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter in Indian country.
Moffett was charged in federal court since she is a registered member of the Cherokee Nation. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma in 2020 that nearly all of eastern Oklahoma is an Indian reservation and that local authorities cannot prosecute tribal members for crimes.
Nowata is a small city of about 4,000 people located about 55 minutes from Tulsa, which is within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation.
In a statement about Moffett’s plea agreement, U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson criticized the mother for being irresponsible with her lawfully owned firearm.
“Every gun owner has the legal responsibility to use extreme caution when discharging a firearm. This case unfortunately highlights the potential tragic results absent that caution,” Johnson said in a statement.
Moffett faces up to eight years in federal prison, but is currently out of jail on supervised release.
No sentencing date has been announced.
In Moffett’s plea agreement, she admitted she was “grossly negligent” when she discharged the handgun.
Mom accidentally killed daughter while trying to shoot stray dog https://t.co/15wpolyG7H pic.twitter.com/dy3bCXjyRn
— New York Post (@nypost) October 6, 2023
“I went out onto my front porch and discharged a handgun at what I believed was the stray dog,” the mother wrote in the agreement, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily Mail.
Moffett added, “When I discharged the firearm, it was dark outside, and I knew [my daughter] was outside of my home trying to save the kittens from the dog. I did not verify that [my daughter] was not in my line of fire when I discharged the handgun.”
Laramie’s obituary said she loved animals and rode both bulls and horses and that she was an award-winning barrel racer
“Laramie always had a smile on her face,” her family said.
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