Comanche, Okla.– An Oklahoma man who fired a gun he bought as a Christmas gift has been charged with manslaughter after authorities said a stray bullet left his yard during target practice and fatally struck a neighbor sitting on a porch just blocks away.
Cody Wayne Adams, 33, was charged Friday in Stevens County with first-degree manslaughter. He was booked into jail and then released on $100,000 bail, court records show.
Stevens County deputies were called to a North Comanche home on Christmas Day after Sandra Phelps was shot while sitting on the home’s front porch holding a baby, according to a sheriff’s affidavit. Witnesses said Phelps said “Oh” and then collapsed.
Investigators determined that Phelps had been shot, and she was pronounced dead about 20 minutes after deputies received a phone call about the shooting, the affidavit states.
Authorities contacted Adams, who told deputies that he had recently bought himself a .45-caliber handgun and was shooting a can in the yard of his home, located about a half-mile (0.8 kilometer) from where Phelps was killed. When deputies told Adams they suspected he shot Phelps, “Adams was visibly upset and began crying,” Stevens County Sheriff’s Capt. Timothy Vann wrote in the affidavit.
A phone message left Monday with Adams’ attorney, Karl Buchholz, was not immediately returned.
Adams is scheduled to appear in court on February 25 and has been ordered to have no contact with the victim’s family, court records show.
Oklahoma law defines first-degree manslaughter as a murder that occurs when it is committed without “intent to cause death” while a person is engaged in the commission of a misdemeanor. It is punishable by life imprisonment. Charging documents allege that Adams engaged in conduct with a firearm that demonstrated “willful disregard for the safety of others,” a misdemeanor crime in Oklahoma.