ST. LOUIS — A woman will serve time in prison after she was accused of playing a gun game with a teen roommate and the girl was killed , Missouri authorities said.
Mary Lashawn Cornelius, 19, was sentenced to seven years in prison on Oct. 16 after pleading guilty to one count of first-degree involuntary manslaughter in the death of Mattison Johnson, 16, court officials said.
Johnson was killed on Jan. 3, when officers found her bleeding from the head on the living room floor of her home in St. Louis. Cornelius, who had been living in the residence, was home at the time , police said.
Cornelius said the two were playing Russian roulette, a gun “game” in which a revolver contains one bullet and once the cylinder is spun, the player holds the barrel to the head and pulls the trigger.
“Cornelius admitted playing with a gun and accidentally shooting Johnson in the head,” a news release from the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court said.
“Nothing is a game when it comes to guns,” a friend of the Johnson family said in court, according to a statement.
Nicole Pettis, Johnson’s mother, told KSDK that her other two daughters, ages 9 and 11, were home at the time of the shooting.
“It was my nine-year-old daughter. She said, ‘Mommy, you got to get home’. I couldn’t even really understand her, but she was hysterical. She said, ‘Mommy, Matti was shot,’” Pettis told KSDK.
Cornelius apologized in court for the shooting, authorities said .
By TJ MACIAS/Fort Worth Star-Telegram
