Father Says Son's Fatal Hunting Incident Was "Murder"
HUDSON (CBS) - A Massachusetts father is outraged at the charges leveled against a New Hampshire man who's accused of shooting his son in a fatal hunting incident in Lisbon, New Hampshire last November.
A grand jury has indicted 48-year-old Wade Holmes on negligent homicide and reckless conduct charges in the death of Kenneth Brunelle of Marlborough, Massachusetts. The father, Craig Brunelle of Hudson, Massachusetts, was only fifteen feet away from his son when he heard the fatal shot and knew it was close. "Forty or fifty away with a rifle with a scope, there's nothing in your way. You call that negligent homicide, I call it murder," he tells WBZ-TV.
He says there were no deer in sight when the shot rang out and he realized it was his son who was down. "I knew he was dead in my brain, I knew he was dead in my heart, I didn't want to believe it," he said. Holmes told authorities he mistook Kenneth Brunelle for a deer. It was the first day of New Hampshire's deer rifle season, and Brunelle was armed only with a camera to take pictures.
"It was a beautiful day and we were having a good time," said his father. The negligent homicide indictment allges that Holmes failed to identify his target with certainty. The reckless conduct indictment alleges that "Holmes engaged in conduct which places or may place another in danger of serious bodily injury".
Craig Brunelle refuses to call it an accident. "I still don't believe the shot he made he didn't know what he was shooting at," he said.
