A Bucks County woman says her daughter and niece are both lucky to be alive after they were nearly struck by a stray bullet inside their bedroom.
Priscilla Hewlett told NBC10 the incident occurred around 9:15 p.m. back on Thursday, Sept. 26, at her home in Bristol Borough, Pennsylvania.
Hewlett’s 8-year-old daughter Isabella Hewlett was sitting on the edge of her bed while her 11-year-old cousin Lilly Weimar was sleeping inside the room. Suddenly a bullet pierced the wall merely inches away from the girls.
The sound of the loud boom jolted Hewlett as she sat outside on the front porch. Her daughter went outside to tell her what had just occurred.
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“I came down outside and I said, ‘There was a ca-boom. They shoot the gun,’” Isabella said.
Hewlett ran into the bedroom and spotted the bullet hole in the wall.
“My aunt came up into my room and checked out the hole and my sister woke me up and said that there was a loud gun noise,” Lilly Weimar said. “So, I woke up and I started crying.”
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Hewlett said she frantically called 911. Responding Bristol Township police officers interviewed her family and inspected the scene.
“They told me [the bullet] came from the neighbor’s house,” Hewlett said.
Nearly a week after the incident, Hewlett told NBC10 she’s received little information from the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office on the investigation.
“I’m just an emotional wreck. I mean, terrified,” Hewlett said. “It could have been anyone else in this house. Just horrific. My children can’t even sleep in their own bedroom at night. I mean every day we have to go up there and get their clothes out of their room and we just bawl out into tears”
Hewlett told NBC10 that while the girls are physically okay, she’s focused on their mental health and getting them treatment. She also said the ordeal has served as a reminder for her to hug her loved ones and never take anything for granted.
“I wish and hope that this doesn’t have to happen to anybody else because the pain that I have to endure is just upsetting,” Hewlett said while in tears. “Knowing that you could be planning a funeral the next day.”
Lilly, meanwhile, had a message she wanted to share after the terrifying moment.
“All the people out in the world, I just want to let you know, please don’t play with guns,” she said.
NBC10 reached out to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office for comment on the investigation. We have not yet heard back from them.
