A 51-year-old Beltzhoover man allegedly told Pittsburgh police he was to blame for an early Sunday morning shooting that killed a 3-year-old girl.
Marlin Pritchard told police he had been sleeping with a shotgun under his pillow with the barrel pointed toward two children sleeping in the same bed as him, according to a criminal complaint filed against him.
He was awoken by the blast of the gun going off, he told police.
“What do you want, man? This is my fault,” Pritchard told detectives who interviewed him after the shooting, according to the complaint.
Pritchard, a construction worker, told police he’d been threatened Saturday by people he was doing work for, and he’d also had a long-standing issue with another man that prompted him to sleep with the shotgun under his pillow for protection, according to the complaint.
The two children had been watching movies in Pritchard’s bed when he got home Saturday night, he told police. The children aren’t related to Pritchard, police said.
The child, identified by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office as Chassity Clancy, was shot in the neck and had no pulse when police arrived, according to the complaint. The other child who was in the room wasn’t hurt, according to the complaint.
Two other adults and another child were also in the house and were not injured. They cooperated with police, according to the complaint.
After the girl was shot, Pritchard picked up the girl, said “wake up” and saw blood in her mouth and a wound on the right side of her neck, according to the complaint.
Pritchard told police he moved the gun outside near some tires behind the house, according to the complaint.
Pritchard is charged with homicide, two counts of child endangering and two firearms violations because he is a convicted felon, according to the complaint.
He is in Allegheny County Jail without bail. An attorney for Pritchard wasn’t listed in online court dockets.
