COLUMBUS – Columbus police say two teenagers made up a story about an armed intruder who broke into a South Side apartment in June and shot two youths, killing one of them, to disguise the fact that the shooting was the result of the teens playing with a loaded gun.
A16-year-old Northeast Side boy was charged with reckless homicide and three other offenses in the shooting death of 15-year-old Shamya Saultz in the apartment on W. Welch Avenue early on the morning of June 6, said Sgt. J.R. Strayer of the Homicide Unit.
A 14-year-old Pickerington boy is facing two charges, including grand theft of a firearm, after investigators determined that the two, along with Saultz and a 14-yer-old boy whose name was not released, were playing with the loaded firearm, which Strayer says was obtained illegally and brought to the residence the evening before.
The charges were filed in consultation with the Juvenile Prosecutors Office, Strayer said.
Initially, witnesses claimed that a single, unknown suspect, wearing all black, entered the apartment and opened fire on a gathering but further investigation determined that the shooting was the result of the teens playing with the gun, Strayer said.
Both victims were taken to Grant Medical Center where the boy survived but Saultz died later that morning, the 49th homicide of the year in Columbus.