At around 7 p.m. on the night of Sunday, April 19, the Clother family had just returned from the funeral of a relative and were relaxing at their family home on Jane Usher Boulevard. The events that unfolded at that time, left a four year old hospitalized and an uncle in shock.
48-year-old Leroy Clother had cleaned his licensed 9-millimeter gun and removed the magazine in his preparation for work on Monday morning. At this same time 4-year-old Noelle Castillo was getting her hair ready for school the next day. Noelle asked her mom to allow her to go and get some water; at this same time, her 22-year-old uncle Otis Clother was moving the gun to give it to his father when the weapon accidentally went off and hit baby Noelle in her right leg. The bullet hit Noelle in the lower part of the buttocks and exited above her knee.
Otis said, “I was just moving the gun. I saw my father unload the gun so I was not as careful as I should have been. When the gun went off I couldn’t believe it. I cannot believe I hurt my little niece.” Apparently, when Leroy Clother unloaded the gun, he forgot to remove the bullet that was in the chamber. Otis continued, “If I knew a bullet was in the gun, I would have held it differently.”
Valerie Clother, Noelle’s mother, said, “When I heard the sound, I thought it was a pop shot. I couldn’t believe that my baby got shot. She just got up to get some water and it was when she screamed that they started saying how my baby got shot. I didn’t know what to do.”
Noelle was rushed to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. She is presently in great spirits according to her mom and is expected to be released on Saturday, April 25. Valerie said that she is not going to press charges against her brother because she is sure that he didn’t intend to do it. Otis was at Calvary Baptist Church, where he is the drum player on the praise team, but he left early to be with his family.
Baby Noelle has spun a positive light to the incident. She wants children to know that “you are not supposed to play with guns!”
