Left inset: Darrell Peterson (Shelby County Sheriff’s Office). Right inset: Patricia Draper Bryant (WHBQ/YouTube). Background: The street where Patricia Draper Bryant was shot in Tennessee (WHBQ/YouTube).
A Tennessee man whose fatal shooting of a grandmother as she held her grandson in her front yard, which was captured in a Facebook Live video, will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Darrell Peterson, 39, was sentenced to life plus 25 years on Friday for the 2020 murder of Patricia Draper Bryant, 55, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release. Peterson was convicted in May of first-degree murder and other related charges.
Bryant was fatally struck on May 16, 2020, on Knob Drive in Frayser, just north of Memphis. Police said the shooting happened as a group of women across the street were fighting. At one point, the group smashed windows, and Peterson drove up to the group, shouted at them and fired several shots, authorities said.
No one in the group was hit, but a stray bullet struck Bryant in the chest two houses away. Police said they found her lying in the grass with a gunshot wound. She was taken to a hospital, where she died. Peterson surrendered to police days later and was indicted the following year.
The argument that led to the bloodshed was streamed on Facebook Live, prosecutors said.
Citing court records, local Fox affiliate WHBQ reported that one woman was seen in the video armed with a knife when she and another woman allegedly broke out windows at the home of a third woman.
The victim’s husband, James Bryant, told local NBC affiliate WMC about the horror of his wife’s death. The mother of three and grandmother of seven was killed as she was holding her 1-year-old grandson.
“My baby died right here in my arms because of some stupid, crazy human being got a gun in his hand,” he told the station. “It’s out of control,” said James. “It’s really out of control, ridiculous. They killed my wife. She ain’t did nothing.”
Neighbor Demetrice Clark told the WMC about the chaos.
“I mean, he was running and shooting, shooting like he was out of his mind,” said Clark. “He really could have hit me.”
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