LANCASTER, S.C. — A 10-year-old boy who was found dead earlier this month was shot by his friend while the two boys were playing, according to the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office.
Deputies were called around 4 p.m. on Nov. 15 to a mobile home park on Coastal Way off Memorial Park Road.
When they got there, they found Dylan Twitty lying on the ground surrounded by people trying to help him.
Deputies said Dylan was at his friend's house playing after school when his 10-year-old friend went into a family member's bedroom and grabbed a 9 mm pistol from under the mattress.
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According to officials, the boys were playing in the living room and the gun went off while the friend was holding it, killing Dylan.
Deputies said that after the shooting, the boy carried Dylan's body out of the house and left him between two mobile homes.
The two boys were reportedly the only ones in the home at the time and it wasn't until older neighborhood kids got off the school bus later in afternoon that Dylan's body was found.
“This was a heartbreaking and tragic loss for the family of this ten-year-old victim, and everybody who knows about this case including all the officers who have and continue to work on it have been affected by what happened," Sheriff Barry Faile said.
Deputies charged a parent of the boy who pulled the trigger with unlawful neglect of a child.
(Dylan Twitty)
'That's my baby boy': Family devastated after 10-year-old shot, killed
Dylan Twitty's family pushed for answers in the days following the shooting.
“It is ridiculous that no one saw anything, no one heard anything, no one knows anything," said Dylan's aunt, Rosiland Cauthen.
Family members originally told Channel 9 that the boy was playing near his home when the shooting happened.
He was taken to the Medical University of South Carolina - Lancaster Medical Center where he died.
"I can't explain it,” his mother, Delia Twitty, said. “That's my baby boy."
Chopper 9 Skyzoom was overhead as the Sheriff's Office combed the area for witnesses and clues.
"I can't believe they did this,” Dylan's 15-year-old brother, Fred Twitty, said. “It hurts. If whoever knows who did this, contact the police, man. It's wrong."
During the initial investigation, officials said the shooting did not appear to have been a random act, but they were unsure if Dylan was the intended victim.
"Someone knows something, man,” the brother said. “They ain't speaking up. They're scared. They're scared to talk."
Pat McFadden, a school counselor at Erwin Elementary, knew the fifth-grader well. She and more than a dozen counselors were on campus Monday to comfort everyone and told stories about a young boy, who cared about his classmates.
"He was always looking for people who were sad, and he would walk over to them and try to make them feel better," McFadden said.
Students at Erwin made cards for his family. They're also talking about selling T-shirts to help the family pay for funeral costs.