A Montana man faces a charge of negligent homicide after he left his loaded handgun on his living room couch while he went outside to smoke, and his 3-year-old son picked it up and shot himself in the face.
Lincoln County Sheriff Darren Short told KRTV that deputies were called to the home just after 10 a.m. on Tuesday and found 24-year-old Timothy Moore sitting in the road outside.
A deputy said Moore appeared to be in an “altered mental state” and asked the deputy “to shoot him” when asked if he was involved in the incident.
Moore told the deputy he’d left the loaded gun on the couch while he went outside. Once outside, he heard and popping sound and ran back in to find his toddler son holding the weapon with a gunshot wound to the head. The child was taken to Cabinet Peaks Medical Center, where he lated died.
Deputies found a .22 caliber handgun and two magazines for the weapon in Moore’s pants pocket. The deputies also saw “track” marks on his arm that appeared consistent with intravenous drug use and found paraphernalia consistent with drug use in the house.
Moore is being held in the Lincoln County Detention Center on a $500,000 bond and has a preliminary hearing set for June 11.
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