SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. — A Shelby County woman has been indicted on criminal charges in the death of an 11-year-old girl who was accidentally shot at a birthday party last summer with a gun her friends found in a kitchen drawer.
Shelby County DA Amy Weirich said Tuesday a grand jury indicted Rakasha Sims, 30, on criminally negligent homicide, two counts of aggravated child neglect, and one count of aggravated parental or custodial child endangerment. She's being held on a $65,000 bond.
It happened on July 7, 2021, at Sims' apartment on Nash Drive in southeast Shelby County near Stateline Road where her daughter was having a sleepover birthday party with three friends.
Five children, including her daughter and 4-year-old son, were left alone and unsupervised in the apartment when one of the girls found the loaded gun while looking for silverware in the kitchen drawers.
Shelby County Sheriff's Office investigators said the girls passed the gun around and it accidentally discharged as one of them was putting it back in the drawer. The shot struck Madison Jones, 11, in the head, killing her.
