Girl Accused Of Murder Called A Terrific Student
Shock has given way to numb disbelief on Churchill Street in San Bernardino, where a Thursday afternoon shotgun blast killed one 14-year-old boy and wounded another.
Police arrested an 11-year-old girl, described by her former principal as an A student, on suspicion of murder and her 38-year-old mother on suspicion of negligent storage of a gun.
The morning after, residents of the usually quiet Verdemont neighborhood in the northern corner of the city were trying to find some reason for a killing they agree makes no sense.
Police said the girl was being taunted by two neighborhood boys to come out of her house when she fired a 12-gauge shotgun through her living room window.
The blast struck Evan Clark in the head, killing him on the spot. Pellets also struck Jeremy Elliott in the face. The killing left the tree-lined neighborhood known by some as “deputy flats” because of the large number of law enforcement personnel who live there, shaking their heads.
“It’s crazy,” said 16-year-old neighbor Angela Thomas. “I don’t think she meant to kill them,” Thomas said. “Just scare them.”
“Kids that age tease each other. Period,” said longtime neighbor Marilyn Woods. “I don’t think this would have happened without the girl having access to a gun. Maybe after this, someone else with a loaded gun will put it away.”
Woods was outside the home when police took the girl away. “She was numb” Woods said. “She wasn’t crying, just quietly sat in the car.
Jim O’Neill, principal of nearby Palm Avenue Elementary School, where the girl graduated from the sixth grade in June, said he cannot believe the girl he knows could have killed.
“She was not just a good student,” O’Neill said. “She was a terrific student. An ‘A’ student.”
O’Neill said since her graduation, the girl has returned often to Palm Avenue to help in her former teacher’s classroom.
“Everybody who knows her, and she was quite well known and liked, can’t understand what happened. What I keep hoping is that it was just a huge accident.”