Amanda Moffett appears in a booking photo. (Nowata County)
An Oklahoma mother is facing years in prison for admittedly shooting and killing her 16-year-old daughter in 2018 during an accidental incident where she intended for her bullets to hit a stray dog.
On Monday, nearly five years to the day of her daughter’s death, Amanda Moffett, 43, a member of the Cherokee Nation, pleaded guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter in Indian Country.
“Every gun owner has the legal responsibility to use extreme caution when discharging a firearm,” U.S. Attorney Clinton Johnson said in a press release. “This case unfortunately highlights the potential tragic results absent that caution.”
On Oct. 5, 2018, Laramie Moffett told her mother that a stray dog was attacking kittens outside the family’s house in Nowata, Oklahoma. The small town, named after a Lenape word for “friendly,” was a former geographical part of the Cherokee Nation that the United States later took. And, according to the Oklahoma Mesonet, the site of the lowest temperature ever recorded in the Sooner State.
But it was warm the night the 16-year-old girl was killed.
“I went out onto my front porch and discharged a handgun at what I believed was the stray dog,” Amanda Moffett wrote in her federal plea agreement. “When I discharged the firearm, it was dark outside, and I knew [my daughter] was outside of my home trying to save the kittens from the dog. I did not verify that [my daughter] was not in my line of fire when I discharged the handgun.”
The defendant went on to admit that her actions under the circumstances were “grossly negligent,” that it was “reasonably foreseeable” that shooting the gun, under those circumstances, threatened her daughter’s life, and that her actions that night were the “direct and proximate cause” of her daughter’s death.
The young girl’s obituary photo features her doing one of the things she loved best — barrel racing at the rodeo. In this sport, a rider on horseback has to traverse a triangle formation of barrels in a cloverleaf pattern while making exceedingly tight turns, maintaining their speed, and being careful not to overturn the obstacles.
“Laramie always had a smile on her face,” the eulogy reads, in part. “She loved all animals, mostly her horses, show calves. She was an accomplished rider in rodeo. She had no fear of animals, she rode bulls, and bareback broncs. Mostly she loved her barrel racing and roping. Laramie won many awards in barrel racing. She qualified for world barrel racing finals in the National Barrel Horse Association.”
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Amanda Moffett faces a potential sentence of eight years in federal prison for cutting her daughter’s life short. That sentence is unlikely.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, the government and the defense agreed that a sentence between zero and 16 months is appropriate due to “the defendant’s early pre-indictment acceptance of responsibility, the strength of the evidence and known trial risks, governmental and judicial economy, and the interests of justice.”
Additionally, the plea agreement notes some more specific issues with the case that are not elaborated on but referred to in the following terms “including: the merits of the initial investigation, probable witness credibility issues, litigation risk for the government and the defendant, the savings of time and potential resources to both parties that pre-indictment resolution obtains, the relationship between the defendant and the victim and the grief suffered by all related parties, and the value that outcome certainty by pre-indictment resolution provides.”
Some clarity comes from a report by Joplin, Missouri-based NBC affiliate KSNF, which serves as a media outlet for the Four State Area of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma — so named because the four states almost touch.
The case dragged on for years after initially being unlawfully filed as an intentional murder in Nowata County, the TV station reported. At the outset, there were discrepancies about the number of shots fired. There was also some dispute about whether the mother and daughter had been arguing on the night in question.
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Amanda Moffett’s attorney eventually had that case dismissed because it was filed in state court. Federal authorities filed charges in an information – shy of an indictment – on Sept. 16.
The defendant is currently on supervised release. No sentencing date has been set. Under the terms of her plea agreement, she has to surrender her pistol and ammunition.
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