A 74-year-old Maryland hunter faces felony manslaughter charges after firing his rifle at a mother of five walking through a Delaware field with her children, a shot he claims was aimed at a deer.
Walter Moorhead of Salisbury, Maryland, was hunting from a ground blind, a camouflaged structure designed to conceal hunters from game, in an open field near Ellendale, Delaware, on Friday evening when he fired the round that struck Santos Maria Chilel Soto, 39. She was walking through the same field with an unidentified man and two children at approximately 7:40 p.m. Delaware State Police said Moorhead believed he saw a deer before pulling the trigger, Fox News reported.
Soto never made it home. State troopers rushed to the field and attempted life-saving care before she was transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Two children witnessed the aftermath. A mother of five was gone, and the man who fired the shot walked out of custody the same weekend after posting bond.
Delaware State Police arrested Moorhead and charged him with manslaughter, specifically, recklessly causing the death of another person, along with possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and three counts of first-degree reckless endangerment. All five charges are felonies. He was released after posting a $43,000 cash bond, the New York Post reported.
The three reckless-endangerment counts correspond to the three other people in the field at the time of the shooting: the unnamed man and the two children who were walking with Soto. Each of them could have been hit.
Police have not disclosed what type of rifle Moorhead used, whether he held a valid Delaware hunting license, or whether the field was legally designated for hunting at the time. The investigation remains open.
Soto was described by those who knew her as a mother of five and a beloved aunt. A fundraiser on GoFundMe was launched to help her family cover funeral services and the cost of transporting her remains to Guatemala, where the family intends to bury her.
By Monday evening, the campaign had raised roughly $12,000. The fundraiser page laid out the weight of what the family now faces:
"Maria's family is now facing the overwhelming pain of this sudden loss while also trying to make sure she is laid to rest with dignity."
The page added that the situation had placed a "heavy financial burden on the family at a time when they are grieving deeply," Breitbart noted.
Several critical details are still missing from the public record. Authorities have not explained how Moorhead could have mistaken a woman walking upright with companions and children for a deer. They have not said how far away he was when he fired or what visibility conditions looked like at 7:40 p.m. on a Friday evening.
It is also unclear whether Moorhead has retained an attorney, entered a plea, or made any public statement. No court date has been disclosed. The relationship between Soto and the unnamed man and children who were with her has not been specified, nor has it been confirmed whether the two children present were among her five.
Soto's connection to a local church, Iglesia De Dios Fuente De Verdad Delaware, was referenced in reporting, the church provided the photograph used in news coverage, but the nature of that relationship has not been detailed.
A 39-year-old woman went for a walk in a field with her kids and never came back. The man who fired the shot posted bond and went home. Whatever the courts decide, accountability for recklessness that leaves a mother dead and five children without one should not come cheap.
