Updated

Updated · Fox News · Sep 22

Maryland Hunter Faces 5 Charges After Killing 39-Year-Old Woman Mistaken for Deer

Updated

Updated · Fox News · Sep 22

Maryland Hunter Faces 5 Charges After Killing 39-Year-Old Woman Mistaken for Deer

Q: What crucial safety rule did a hunter ignore before a fatal twilight mistake cost a mother of five her life?

He appears to have ignored the most basic firearms rule in hunting: never shoot until you have positively identified your target — and what is beyond it. That principle is central to hunter-safety training and is especially critical at dusk, when visibility drops and movement can be misread. Investigators said Walter W. Moorhead fired from a ground blind at what he believed was a deer, but it was Santos Maria Chilel Soto, who was walking across the field with three other people. The fact that he later approached with a flashlight, apparently looking for a deer, underscores that he fired without confirming exactly what he was shooting at. The timing also matters. Delaware hunting hours generally end a half-hour after sunset, and sunset in Ellendale that day was about 7:06 p.m. The shot was reported around 7:40 p.m., outside legal hunting hours. Those limits exist in part to reduce the risk of exactly this kind of misidentification in low light. Safety guidance cited in hunter education is clear: know your target, identify it positively, and know what lies beyond it before pulling the trigger. In practical terms, that means never firing at movement, shape, or sound alone. Authorities say that breakdown turned a twilight hunting trip into a fatal shooting that killed a 39-year-old mother of five.

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Sep 22

Walter Moorhead, 74, was arrested after Delaware police said he fatally shot Santos Maria Chilel Soto, 39, while she walked through an Ellendale field with a man and two children.
Police said Moorhead fired from a ground blind around 7:40 p.m. Friday after mistaking Soto for a deer; troopers gave emergency aid before she died at a local hospital.
The charges include manslaughter, possession of a firearm during a felony and three counts of first-degree reckless endangerment; Moorhead was released after posting a $43,000 cash bond.
Soto was described as a mother of five and a beloved aunt, and a fundraiser had raised about $12,000 by Monday evening for funeral costs and to send her body to Guatemala.
The shooting remains under investigation, adding to scrutiny of the hunting incident that police said unfolded during a deer hunt in Delaware.