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More Details Surface in Death of Henrico Infant

By Bill Mckelway, Richmond times-Dispatch

Published: January 28, 2009

Henrico County authorities revealed yesterday that the only gun taken from a Watts Lane home where a 2-year-old boy supposedly shot himself Sunday was a .22-caliber rifle.

Henrico police and Commonwealth's Attorney Wade Kizer declined to add further details about items recovered from 1904 Watts Lane on Sunday night or about how Kristofer Jefferson suffered a fatal bullet wound there.

Kristofer was one of eight children age 14 or younger living at the small home with their mother and grandmother. At least two other adult males were in the home at the time of the shooting, sometime before 5 p.m.

The grandmother, Denise M. Jefferson, 57, is being held without bond on a felony child-neglect charge and a misdemeanor charge of keeping a loaded weapon within reach of a child.

Adults in the home on Sunday, including Denise Jefferson, told police the children found a gun in the backyard and that sometime later one of the children reported that Kristofer had shot himself.

Denise Jefferson declined to call police, she told investigators, because "the police would not help." Some members of the family have a history of encounters with law-enforcement officers.

Kristofer died about six hours after the shooting at VCU Medical Center, where he had been taken by a male occupant of the home, according to a search-warrant affidavit.

Kizer declined yesterday to comment directly about the likelihood of a 2-year-old child being able to shoot himself with a rifle, saying only that the rifle was the only weapon found inside the home.

Contents of a search warrant made public yesterday also show that police confiscated a pit bull, three boxes of .22-caliber cartridges, a single .22-caliber casing, a bullet, a jacket with a red stain, and a plastic bag of 7.62-caliber cartridges.

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