Warning: Article has detailed accounts of the shooting
Breanna Gayle Devall Runions, 25, was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the death of Evangaline Gunter.
The child’s parents, Adam and Josie Gunter, told ABC affiliate WATE that Evangaline had been in temporary custody at a home in Rockwood, which Runions shared with girlfriend Christina Daniels and another child, a 7-year-old girl.
Before the shooting, Evangaline and the older girl were being punished that morning by Runions for not waking up the women and for eating Daniels’ food without permission, according to the warrant and a statement from Russell Johnson, district attorney general for Tennessee’s 9th Judicial District. Runions struck both girls with a sandal before forcing them to stand in different corners of the women’s bedroom, authorities said the older girl told them.
After the shooting, the women drove Evangaline to a nearby Walmart location to meet an ambulance, Roane County Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas Boduch told the Roane County News, and the vehicle transported the girl to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Boduch could not immediately be reached by HuffPost.
I mean, IANAL but I think it’s pretty easy to argue that anyone with the bare minimum knowledge of firearms and intent to teach safety would know that:
You presume the gun is always loaded.
You check the chamber, even after pulling the mag. And then still treat the gun as loaded.
You don’t start the lesson by putting the barrel of the gun to anyone’s chest and pulling the trigger. Because you don’t do that when treating a gun as if its loaded.
With those three points, which again, I would argue constitutes the bare minimum to anyone attempting to teach firearm safety, a skilled prosecutor could argue there was some sort of intent. She would have known those things, yet didn’t do those things, and so behaved in a way that indicates other intent. Easier to argue manslaughter, of course, but it’s just so egregious I can see why they’d push for 1st degree.
The standard for first degree murder is higher than the mens rea required for most crime. It’s not just an intent to kill, it’s a premeditated plan to kill.
I think they pushed for first degree because most people see murdering a child as the most bad murder you can do and first degree murder as the most bad murder charge you can convict someone of. To do any less would invite political attacks for being “soft on crime” but I think it’s a lot to try to argue that this person must have intended to kill this child because no one could possibly be that stupid. Any time I’ve ever thought “no one could possibly be that stupid and cruel” I’ve been unpleasantly surprised.
Yeah, honestly I think first degree might be a mistake and she may go free for it. If they have other evidence, fine. It just seems like a stupid person who maybe has anger and self control issues. They probably shouldn’t have access to a firearm in the first place though with good mental health evaluations. This girl didn’t need to die.