The man accused of shooting a 6-year-old girl and her parents on Tuesday in North Carolina after a basketball rolled onto his lawn turned himself in to police in Florida on Thursday.
Robert Singletary, of Gastonia, North Carolina, was wanted for four counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.
MANHUNT FOR MAN POLICE SAY SHOT 6-YEAR-OLD GIRL AND HER PARENTS AFTER BALL ROLLED ONTO HIS LAWN
Singletary was taken into custody in Tampa, Florida, at about 4:45 p.m. Thursday, according to the Gaston County Police Department, who added that he did not have any identification on him. Singletary will be extradited back to Gaston County, North Carolina, and have a court appearance on Friday.
The shooting occurred on Tuesday evening as children were outside playing, and a basketball rolled onto Singletary’s lawn, prompting him to yell at the children who went to retrieve it. One of the children told their father, who then went to Singletary’s home and told him if he had a problem, he should talk to the adult neighbors about it, not the children.
Singletary reportedly went inside his home, came out with a gun, and started shooting at his neighbors, hitting a 6-year-old girl, Kinsley White, her mother, Ashley Hilderbrand, and her father, William White. Derrick Prather, another neighbor, was also shot at, but not hit, according to police. Kinsley reportedly was outside riding her bike and had nothing to do with the basketball.
Kinsley and Hilderbrand were treated and released from the hospital after the shooting. Kinsley’s cheek shows the scars from the wounds bullet fragments caused. William White remains in the hospital in serious condition. According to witnesses, the gunman kept shooting even after William hit the ground.
Singletary was reportedly new to the area and would frequently get angry with children in the neighborhood. In December, Singletary was charged with assaulting his 21-year-old girlfriend with a mini sledgehammer. Police said Singletary kept the victim inside his apartment and did not allow her to leave for over two hours, per Queen City News.
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The shooting came on the heels of several others in the United States in the past couple of weeks where young people were shot in situations not normally associated with danger or violence. A 16-year-old was shot in Kansas City, Missouri, after he approached the wrong home trying to pick up his younger siblings.
A 20-year-old woman was shot and killed in upstate New York after the car she was in turned into the wrong driveway, confusing it with another property. And a car full of cheerleaders in Texas was shot because one of them had earlier mistaken the shooter’s car for hers.
