Jada Willingham Georgia five year old girl accidentally shot dead by friend playing with gun found at Lithonia home. Playmate’s father arrested.
A 5 year old Georgia girl was ‘accidentally’ shot and killed by her friend as the two 5-year-olds played with a loaded gun last week, authorities said.
Jada Willingham and her friend were playing with the ‘weapon’ inside a bedroom of a Lithonia home Friday when the gun went off and a bullet struck Jada in the face, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
There were two other children and the babysitter in the home at the time.
The 68-year-old babysitter, who is the grandmother of one of the children, rushed to the bedroom and found Jada bleeding from her face.
DeKalb County police responded to the home around 2:30 p.m. and found the woman holding a cloth to Jada’s face, trying to stop the bleeding, according to an arrest report.
‘I only pulled the trigger back a little bit’
Jada was rushed to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston Hospital, where she later died.
Investigators said the girls had been playing with a loaded 9mm Smith & Wesson, which belongs to the playmates’ mother, who’s in the military.
The friend found the weapon in her parent’s room, tucked under the bed and on top of an ammo box. The two friends then went into a separate bedroom to play with the firearm, the police report states.
Jada’s friend told police she didn’t know the gun was loaded with bullets, and that she ‘only pulled (the trigger) back a little bit,’ police said.
Weapon found ‘without a holster, full magazine, with a round chambered.’
Investigators noted the weapon was found ‘without a holster, full magazine, with a round chambered.’
Chad Brooks was arrested Saturday and was charged with second-degree murder and second-degree cruelty to children after police said he left the gun unattended according to Fox 5 Atlanta.
The man was identified as the father of the playmate who ‘accidentally’ shot the five year old girl dead. WAGA-TV reported Brooks is the babysitter’s son-in-law.
Keisha Walker demanded other adults should be held responsible for her daughter’s death.
‘The babysitter showed so much negligence when my daughter got shot,’ Walker told the TV station.
‘Words can’t explain how that little girl was, and I’ll never see her again. I’ll never get another Jada.’
