Amy Trout (Photo courtesy of Ozark County Sheriff’s Office)
An Ozark County woman has been arrested after shooting her two kids, ages 8 and 5, with a BB gun as a form of punishment. Thirty-seven-year-old Amy Dunn Trout of Gainesville is facing seven felony charges for the incident.
According to the probable cause affidavit from the Ozark County Sheriff’s Office, deputies, along with a Department of Family Services (DFS) case worker, responded after officials from the Gainesville Elementary School made a hotline call about the two children.
The officials met with the children and Trout at their home. The 5-year-old boy said his mommy got mad and shot him with the BB gun. He lifted his shirt and showed them a bruise that was clearly made from a BB strike. The 8-year-old girl told officials she and her brother had played with the BB gun when they were not supposed to, and it made their mommy mad. She said their mommy shot her brother while they were jumping on the trampoline, and when she did that, she took off running, and that is when her Mommy shot her. She lifted her shirt and showed officials where she had been struck and where her mom had been standing when she shot them.
When the DFS worker questioned Trout, she said she had told the children not to play with the gun, and when she shot at them, she never thought she would hit them. Trout retrieved the gun, gave it to law enforcement and was taken into custody. The children were left in the custody of their father who was at work at the time of the incident.
At the Ozark County Sheriff’s Office, during questioning, Trout broke down and kept saying, “I shot my babies. I’m a terrible mother. What type of mother would do that?”
Trout is facing two charges each of armed criminal action, second-degree domestic assault and first-degree endangering the welfare of a child creating a substantial risk and one count of abuse or neglect of a child. All of the charges are felonies.
She is being held in the Ozark County Jail without bond pending her first court date.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI