A woman was fatally shot in Gwinnett County on Saturday evening while her roommate was cleaning a gun, police said.
Officers responding to a home on Wynhall Drive around 6:30 p.m. found a woman shot in the chest, according to Gwinnett police. She was taken to a local hospital with “significant injuries,” where she later died.
She was identified as Dixie Cowe, 43, of Norcross. The woman’s roommate, 26-year-old Keely Kilpatrick, said the gun accidentally went off.
Both lived at the home in the Wyntree subdivision with Kilpatrick’s mother, police said. The neighborhood is located off Medlock Bridge Road, which is partly in the city of Peachtree Corners and partly considered unincorporated Norcross.
During an initial investigation, detectives learned Kilpatrick told her mother she was going downstairs to clean a firearm.
“According to the mother, she heard a loud noise sounding like a gunshot,” a police spokesman said in a news release. “She went downstairs to investigate. Her daughter immediately told her that the gun accidentally went off and struck the friend.”
The mother and daughter have been cooperating with the death investigation, which is considered a homicide case, according to police. Kilpatrick was taken into custody Saturday night and later charged with involuntary manslaughter.
She is being held in the Gwinnett County jail without bond, police said Sunday.
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