Accidental shooting kills 12-year-old

Friday, November 2, 2001
GARDEN CITY

The 12-year-old son of two sheriff's deputies accidentally shot and killed his best friend, authorities in southwest Kansas said Wednesday.

Casey Gillespie, also 12, was shot in the head Tuesday afternoon when a 22-caliber rifle discharged in the home of the deputies, about 15 miles northeast of Garden City, Finney County Atty. John Wheeler said.

The deputies were gone to parent-teacher conferences. The two 12-year-old boys and a 13-year-old boy had been plinking, or target shooting, in the yard before going back inside.

One boy sat on a bed to use a computer, reached over to move a rifle and it went off, Wheeler said.

"The preliminary investigation indicates a tragic, accidental shooting," Wheeler said.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation was looking into the incident.

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