William Owens was an 11-year-old White/Caucasian boy from the Jarvisville area of Harrison County, West Virginia, whose life ended in a devastating shooting on June 30, 2013. Late that night, William was in bed at his father’s home when his father and his grandmother, Tina Owens, became concerned that someone might be outside tampering with property around their neighboring residences. Tina lived in a separate home roughly 200 yards away.
Believing there could be intruders outside, Tina Owens, who was 57 at the time, armed herself with a. 40-caliber handgun and went outdoors to investigate. She fired several shots into the darkness in an apparent effort to frighten away whoever she believed might be on the property. Investigators later reported that there was no evidence that prowlers had actually been present.
One of the rounds traveled far beyond the area where it was fired.
The bullet penetrated the wall of the house where William was sleeping and struck him once in the chest as he lay in bed. Harrison County Sheriff Albert Marano described the fatal shot as a stray round from the gunfire outside. William suffered a catastrophic wound and subsequently died from his injuries. The circumstances transformed what had apparently begun as an attempt to scare away perceived trespassers into a fatal shooting involving a child inside a nearby home.
Authorities focused their investigation on Tina Owens because the fatal bullet came from the handgun she had fired. Contemporary accounts characterized William's death as an accidental shooting rather than an intentional attack on him. The. 40-caliber pistol was reported to have been legally owned, but prosecutors nevertheless considered whether firing several rounds under those circumstances amounted to criminal conduct.
The Harrison County prosecutor publicly indicated that charges were being pursued against Tina Owens. In discussing the case, the prosecutor emphasized that possessing and using a firearm carried a responsibility to ensure that gunfire did not endanger other people. A later national compilation of unintentional child shooting deaths listed the case as one in which criminal charges were brought, although the publicly accessible sources reviewed do not clearly identify the precise charge, the date of any arrest or indictment, or the terms of any prosecution.
Available online records also do not establish that Tina Owens was ultimately tried or convicted in William's death. Because the shooting was described as unintended, there was no reported allegation that she had deliberately targeted her grandson. The central issue for investigators and prosecutors was instead whether her decision to fire repeatedly outside toward an area containing another residence constituted criminal negligence or another firearm-related offense. The surviving online material documents the prosecutor's intention to pursue accountability but does not provide a reliable final court disposition.
William's death remained part of his family's history long afterward. An obituary for Tina Owens published following her death in 2023 identified a grandson, William A. Owens, as having predeceased her, providing later confirmation of the profound loss that had occurred within the family. What began as a perceived threat outside the family's homes ended with a bullet passing through a wall and killing a child who had been asleep inside, leaving a tragedy that authorities said underscored the consequences of discharging a firearm without knowing where the rounds could travel.
