Sheriff: Stray bullet kills Amish teen 1.5 miles away

A teenage Amish girl shot on the way home from a Christmas party in her horse-drawn buggy was apparently killed by a stray bullet fired by a man cleaning his rifle 1.5 miles away, an Ohio sheriff says.

Update at 1:38 p.m. ET: An Ohio sheriff says Rachel Yoder, 15, was shot in the head Thursday night while riding in her buggy after a Christmas party at a produce farm, the Associated Press reports.

She was heading to her home in Wayne County, between Columbus and Akron, when she was hit, according to Wayne County sheriff's Capt. Douglas Hunter.

Hunter says his department had traced a trail of blood along the road for about three-eighths of a mile into Holmes County in an area of farms and rolling hills.

Holmes County Sheriff Timothy Zimmerly says investigators figured out what happened after the gun-cleaner's family came forward and after his neighbors reported hearing a shot at about the time the girl was wounded.

The man had fired the gun in the air about 1.5 miles from where Yoder was shot, Zimmerly says. State investigators are checking the rifle for a ballistics match, he says.

"In all probability, it looks like an accidental shooting," Zimmerly says. No charges have been filed.

Zimmerly said he informed the Yoder family that the shooting appeared to be accidental, the AP reports.

"Obviously, that makes them feel a lot better than if someone might have been targeting the Amish or (if it was) a random shooting murder," he says.

Original post: The Holmes County Sheriff's Office says Rachel Yoder, 15, of Fredericksburg, died Friday of a single gunshot wound to the head, The Coshocton Tribune reports. Initially, authorities thought she had hit her head after falling out of her buggy, but a medical scan found that the injury was due to a gunshot.

The newspaper says authorites traced droplets of blood back to an intersection but have not determined how the shooting occurred.

The Tribune says Yoder was returning from a Christmas party and had dropped off a friend. Her brother found her body after he noticed her horse and buggy going in a circle near their home and went out to investigate.

FOX8 News in Cleveland reports that the horse instinctly took the buggy home after the shooting.

There was no immediate indication that the shooting was related to a rash of attacks in which the beards and hair of men and hair of women were cut by fellow Amish upset over a church feud, the Associated Press reports.

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