No charges have been filed in the case of a 3-year-old who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound last year.
According to reports, 3-year-old Aylee Gordon of Henderson County North Carolina shot herself in the head on Christmas Day last year, and she died three days later.
A North Carolina district attorney released a letter Tuesday calling the incident a "catastrophic accident" and explaining that no charges are being filed.
District Attorney Andrew Murray said in the letter to the Henderson County Sheriff that no North Carolina criminal laws were violated in the incident.
According to the letter, the young girl's adult half-brother, Sam Gordon, placed his loaded firearm in the front passenger door of a pickup before being asked to sit in the back seat with the children.
Roughly an hour after arriving at their location, the girl wet herself and needed to be taken home to be changed.
Unaware of a firearm in sed location, Anya Gordon, the child's mother, placed Aylee in the front passenger seat of the vehicle.
The girl then found the firearm, according to Murray's letter, "Almost immediately, everyone heard the sound of a gunshot from the vehicle."
The father and former sheriff, Tim Gordon, called 911 to report the incident. Aylee was taken to a hospital for treatment, where she died three days later.
"Because the Gordons were unaware and had no reason to believe that Samuel Gordon's gun was stowed in the pickup truck, they cannot be held criminally responsible for this accident," Murray wrote.
Murray continued to explain that Samuel cannot be held legally accountable either. He confirmed Samuel left a loaded firearm in a location accessible to a minor, which is against North Carolina Law.
"However, the statute is clear that it applies solely to a person 'who resides in the same premises as a minor,'" Murray wrote, explaining that Samuel was a Georgia resident who did not live in Aylee's home at the time.
"There is no doubt that Samuel made a terrible decision when he stored the loaded gun in a place where a child could find it, however, no North Carolina laws were violated as a result of his ill-fated decision."
