{"id":373685,"date":"2025-12-28T19:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T19:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/373685\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T19:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T19:48:09","slug":"oklahoma-man-doing-target-practice-in-back-yard-charged-in-fatal-shooting-of-neighbor-oklahoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/373685\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma man doing target practice in back yard charged in fatal shooting of neighbor | Oklahoma"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man in Oklahoma<\/a> is facing a manslaughter charge after he allegedly shot a woman several blocks from his home while firing a gun he got himself for Christmas at an energy drink can in his back yard.<\/p>\n

As told in court documents reviewed by NBC News<\/a>, the death of Sandra Phelps at the hands of Cody Wayne Adams illustrates how deadly the consequences can be when those engaging in the US\u2019s prevalent gun culture do so unsafely. Adams\u2019s back yard was not equipped to stop bullets from leaving the property and striking unsuspecting people in the surrounding area, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

Phelps was sitting under a covered porch with family on Christmas and holding a child in her arms when they heard gunshots north of the house, said an affidavit laying out the circumstances of Adams\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cSandra commented that someone got a new gun for Christmas and then shortly after Sandra said \u2018ouch\u2019 and collapsed,\u201d the affidavit said. It said there were no more gunshots after that.<\/p>\n

Emergency personnel were dispatched to Phelps\u2019s address at about 3.15pm Thursday, the Stephens county sheriff\u2019s office said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe later received a call stating an individual had just received a gun for Christmas and was target practicing in his backyard and that they believed it would be pointing in the direction of the scene,\u201d the sheriff\u2019s office statement added.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestigators went to the reported address and spoke with an individual [who] confirmed he was shooting a target in his back yard and that he had heard that someone has died from a gunshot wound a couple of roads over.\u201d<\/p>\n

That individual was Adams, 33, who showed deputies a Red Bull can in his back yard that he had been shooting with his handgun, according to the affidavit justifying his arrest.<\/p>\n

Authorities allegedly concluded that the vantage point from where Adams was shooting aligned with the angle of the bullet that killed Phelps. They also determined the home lacked a suitable shooting backstop meant to protect those in the surrounding area from being struck by stray bullets.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdams became visibly upset and began to cry\u201d when he learned of Phelps, the affidavit added. He was arrested on a count of first-degree manslaughter and later released on a $100,000 bond.<\/p>\n

In the US, unintentional deaths from firearms are a small percentage of gun deaths in the country. But they occur four times more often<\/a> in the US than in comparable countries \u2013 and most involve a handgun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man in Oklahoma is facing a manslaughter charge after he allegedly shot a woman several blocks from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-373685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}