MISTAKEN IDENTITY: SHE THOUGHT SHE SHOT AND KILLED AN INTRUDER NOT KNOWING IT WAS HER FRIEND

 

A woman thought she had shot an intruder. It turned out she killed a friend.

  

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WPVI Investigators say Kelvin Watford was fatally shot after he entered a friend’s home without warning in an attempt to surprise her. On the phone with his friend, Kelvin Watford decided he would surprise her by sneaking into her Hamilton Township, N.J., home when she wasn’t expecting him.
The pair was still talking when Watford managed to open her front door and walk inside late Thursday night.
But the simple surprise turned into a tragic mistake when Watford’s friend took out her gun and opened fire, thinking Watford was an intruder, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office.
The woman, whose named hasn’t been released, called 911 and first told the emergency operator that she’d just shot an intruder.
Then, prosecutors said, the woman told the operator that she’d accidentally opened fire on her friend.
Police found the 50-year-old Watford, of Willingboro, N.J., at the bottom of the stairs with a gunshot wound to the chest, prosecutors said.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
“Preliminary indications are that the homicide was accidental,” prosecutors said.
Moments before the shooting, prosecutors said, Watford told his friend on the phone that he was returning from a trip and not in the area.
As they talked, the woman later told investigators, she heard a dog barking “and noises outside of her house.”
When the noise continued, she told investigators, she retrieved her gun, then heard someone inside the house.
“She heard someone inside of her house and walked to her bedroom door, still on the phone,” according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office.
“She then opened her bedroom door, observed the shadow of a person in the dark on the stairs, and fired one gunshot,” the statement said.
By the time the woman realized she’d shot her friend, police were already on their way.
Neighbors didn’t report hearing a gunshot and only discovered something terrible had taken place after police descended on the block, according to ABC affiliate WPVI.
No charges have been filed, and the incident remains under investigation, prosecutors said.