Indiana Woman Pregnant With Twins Dies After Being Shot, Officials Say

Police tape in a stock photo. (Carl Ballou/Shutterstock)

An Indiana woman who was shot in the head while pregnant with twins has died, it was reported on Aug. 11.

Police said that 29-year-old Alexis Wasson, of Anderson, was 21 weeks pregnant when she was shot in the back of the head, allegedly by her boyfriend Skye’lar White, on Aug. 2, Fox59 reported.

He allegedly told his mother than the shooting was “an accident” before he was arrested, reported The Indy Channel, citing court documents.

Anderson Police Chief Tony Watters said that the second of her male twins died earlier this week. And the other baby died a day before due to the “detrimental effects” of the shooting, reported The Associated Press.

Now, after the three deaths, White is facing murder and feticide [causing the death of a human fetus] charges, officials told local news outlets. “It’s just a horrible thing for our community, and we’re all grieving over this,” said Madison County prosecutor Rodney Cummings. Cummings said that White drove the victim to his mother’s home after the shooting.

His mother later told police that the shooting was accidental because the gun was in the bed at the time.

White added, “The gun went off and grazed her head,” an affidavit stated.

White’s mother then took Wasson to the hospital, but White made no effort to help, police said.

“His behavior seems very inconsistent with what would be an accidental shooting,” said Cummings. “He says it’s an accident and grazing wound. That’s inconsistent with the evidence so far.”

The Indianapolis Star reported that while White’s mother drove Wasson to the hospital, a witness said White allegedly fled the premises on foot.

White was located by police officers later in the day on Aug. 2, and when he was asked to speak to detectives, he requested to speak to a lawyer first, according to the report.

Police found a shell casing behind the bed’s headboard. However, the gun has not been recovered.

If convicted, White could face 117 years in prison, prosecutors have said.

“It’s a horrible crime and horrible outcome. There’s a dead mother and two dead babies. What message is there? Who knows? All we can do is the best to achieve justice for the grieving family,” said Cummings.

Other details about the case are not clear.

Facts About Crime in the United States

Violent crime in the United States has fallen sharply over the past 25 years, according to both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (pdf).

The rate of violent crimes fell by 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the FBI’s UCR, which only reflects crimes reported to the police.

The violent crime rate dropped by 74 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to the BJS’s NCVS, which takes into account both crimes that have been reported to the police and those that have not.

The FBI recently released preliminary data for 2018. According to the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January to June 2018, violent crime rates in the United States dropped by 4.3 percent compared to the same six-month period in 2017.

While the overall rate of violent crime has seen a steady downward drop since its peak in the 1990s, there have been several upticks that bucked the trend.

Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4, according to an Epoch Times analysis of FBI data. The last two-year period that the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.