A 64-year-old Mapaville woman was shot in the back of the head Saturday night (March 31) while she and her husband were leaving a home in the 4000 block of Hillsboro Hematite Road near Hematite after dropping off a meal for the woman who lives there. The victim, whose name has not been released, was not seriously hurt, authorities reported.
At 8:28 p.m., after the victim was shot, her husband took her to the Mapaville Fire Station, 3687 Plass Road, Fire Chief Darryl Reed said.
Then, Joachim-Plattin Ambulance took her from the station to Mercy Hospital St. Louis in Creve Coeur, where she was treated and released, JPAD Administrator Curtis Stueve said.
A 22-year-old man who lives in a neighboring home on Hillsboro Hematite Road was arrested for allegedly shooting the woman, said Cpl. Matthew Moore of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
Moore said the victim and her husband were leaving the home when she was struck by a bullet. The suspect told authorities he thought the victim was a trespasser who was not supposed to be at his neighbor’s home, so he fired a gun as a “warning shot.”
Reed said the husband was badly shaken but told Mapaville Fire crew members he and his wife wanted to deliver a meal to the woman at the home, but left it on the porch when they found she was not home. The husband also said that while they were in their truck, the bullet “went through the back window of his pickup.”
Stueve said the extent of the woman’s injury was not known until she was taken to the hospital.
“There was a puncture to the back of the head,” he said. “The (paramedics) were not sure if it penetrated. They took her to Mercy St. Louis, where they found it did not penetrate the skull. It broke the skin. She got stitches and was treated and released.”