‘Horseman of the Year’ Killed Horse While Shooting at Son, Authorities Say
A North Carolina man who was recently inducted into the Carolinas Show Hunter Hall of Fame tried to shoot one of his sons during an argument on the family farm last week but instead fatally injured the horse that the son was riding, the authorities said on Tuesday.
The son was unharmed, but the horse, which was identified by a family member as a Grand Prix jumper named Franklin’s Tower, had to be euthanized, said John J. Sauve, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office in Polk County, N.C.
The shooting last Wednesday turned the family’s horse farm in Columbus, N.C., into a scene of violence and anguish and shocked residents in Polk County, where the father, John Victor Russell, 75, has been riding and training horses for decades.
“It’s just heartbreaking,” Suzanne Feagan, the son’s former wife, said in an interview, adding that she had witnessed the shooting at the farm. “The whole family is shocked. Obviously angry. Never would we have seen this coming. He must be in a horrible mental state to have done that.”
Source: The New York Times
