Woman drank outside while 4-year-old fatally shot 7-year-old. She’s sentenced
The mother of a 7-year-old Wichita boy who was accidentally shot and killed by a 4-year-old asked a judge for leniency on behalf of her friend Tasha Dillard, the 25-year-old woman charged in her son’s death.
Ataya Johnson, the mother of Davion Gunter Jr., tearfully urged Judge Sean Hatfield to grant her friend probation instead of prison time Thursday during Dillard’s sentencing hearing.
“I don’t think that she deserves to go to prison …” Johnson said. “Tasha is a really good person, and she wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
Dillard was charged with first-degree felony murder in March after a 4-year-old found a loaded gun in her apartment and fired it, accidentally killing Davion Gunter. The two children, as well as several others under the age of 10, were left alone in Dillard’s apartment while Dillard and other adults took tequila shots in a car outside. According to an affidavit, the children were “playing guns” when the 4-year-old found a loaded gun in Dillard’s purse and shot Gunter in the upper torso. He died at a hospital. Dillard pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and six counts of aggravated child endangerment. On Thursday, she was sentenced to 37 months in prison.
When given the opportunity to address the judge and the court, Dillard tearfully apologized.
“I never intended for anybody to get hurt,” she said. “I wish I had never been outside that night.”
