Visha Franklin is accused of firing a good Samaritan in the face in North Carolina. (Crime scene screenshot from CBS 17/YouTube; mug Shot from Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office — North Carolina)
A woman involved in a crash in North Carolina shot and wounded a good Samaritan who had offered to help, and witnesses said the suspect stripped down “butt naked” and ranted about God, a gun and a knife, authorities said.
Visha Franklin, 41, was arrested in connection with the bloodshed that left an unidentified 40-year-old woman hospitalized in stable condition with a gunshot wound to her face, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
The shooting happened on Tuesday. The Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call at 5:16 p.m. for a car crash and a woman being shot in the 4800 block of Matt Hair Road in Fayetteville.
Police said the shooting happened when the victim saw the vehicle crash and slowed to help, and Franklin fired several shots into her vehicle, striking the woman, officials said.
A state Highway Patrol sergeant told The Fayetteville Observer that Franklin had crashed when she veered through a front yard, crossed a road and hit two trees.
Franklin was booked without bail into the Cumberland County Detention Center. She faces charges of attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and four counts of discharging a weapon into occupied property, authorities said.
Witnesses described the chaos to Raleigh, North Carolina’s NBC affiliate WRAL-TV.
“She had stripped down butt naked and piled her clothes and looked at one firefighter and told him, ‘Take your glasses off and look me in the eyes. I’m God,’” the witness told the station.
Another witness said Franklin said “all kinds of stuff, like ‘Lord Jesus, give her a gun. Give her a knife. She’s got a lot to do.’ Then she was hollering and screaming,” the witness said, according to the news outlet.
A witness told local CBS affiliate WNCN about the suspect’s actions after the shooting.
“She was waving the gun in the air with the slide back so you could tell it was empty,” the witness said, the outlet reported. “She was yelling, ‘Just run me over.’”
Franklin is expected to appear in court on April 9, according to online court records.
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