STUART, Fla. — A family is pleading for justice after, they say, a stray bullet killed a 73-year-old grandmother in her Stuart home while watching TV Thanksgiving night.
The shooting happened just before 8 p.m. Thursday evening near Southeast 10th Street and Spruce Avenue.
Raven Jolly told WPTV that a stray bullet from a gunfight outside killed her 73-year-old grandmother, Mattie Jones. Stuart police said two other people were critically wounded in the shooting.
“I’m really hurt about the situation, my grandmother is a nice person,” Jolly said. “She meant a lot, she’s everything she holds our family together.”
Joseph Jones said he was inside the home, sitting just feet away from his mother as the bullets started to fly outside.
“The bullet went through the window, went past my face, I almost got shot, and then it hit my mom right here,” Jones said. “When the bullet hit, she died instantly.”
The front of the home bares scars from the barrage of bullets.
Carla Scales said she visited with her mother just hours before she died.
“For them to just do a random shooting where these elderly people live is uncalled for,” Scales said. “Everybody is taking it hard, because she was the one all of us came to. She was the one that kept the family together. That was my mom.”
A spokesperson with Stuart police told WPTV that detectives continue to work the case and claim there’s no active threat to the community at large.