15-Year-Old Forest City Girl Shoots Kills Mom’s Abusive NC BF In “Justified Shooting”

FOREST CITY, NC. (THECOUNT) — A quick thinking North Carolina teenage girl took the extreme action of shooting her mother’s abusive boyfriend who was strangling her and threatening the family with a knife.

A North Carolina sheriff’s office says, the girl’s 12-year-old brother handed her a handgun and in turn, she shot and killed, Steven Kelley, 46, the man who was in the process of assaulting her mother.

The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office said on its Facebook page 46-year-old Steven Kelley was assaulting a woman Aug. 8 at a home in Forest City where they lived with her three children. Investigators said that during the assault, Kelley threatened to cut the woman’s throat and kill everyone in the house. The sheriff’s office said the woman’s 12-year-old son got a gun and handed it to his 15-year-old sister, who shot Kelley in the chest. source

The sheriff’s office said the teenager’s 16-year-old sister was wounded in the incident by a bullet fragment. She was transported to a local hospital where she was treated and released.

District attorneys announced later that they decided not to press charges on the girl, calling the case a “justified” shooting.

The victim’s names were not released because of their age.