The father of a 16-month-old boy was arrested Thursday in connection with the child’s death from a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
Ronald Bohannon had told investigators that he was pushing his son Travis in a stroller near his home in western Indiana on Sunday evening when he heard the gunshot, but the Greene County Sheriff’s Department arrested him on several preliminary charges, including reckless homicide, pointing a firearm and false informing.
Neither the sheriff’s department nor the county prosecutor’s office immediately released details on how investigators believe the boy was shot.
Bohannon, 29, of Midland, was being held in the Greene County Jail. The prosecutor’s office said a court hearing for him had not yet been set and it did not know whether he had a lawyer. The most serious of the preliminary charges against him carries a potential prison term of two years to eight years.
The arrest came less than a day after investigators reported finding a handgun in a wooded, weed-filled area near where Travis was killed.
Greene County Prosecutor Jarrod Holtsclaw told the Greene County Daily World that the Indiana State Police Lab in Indianapolis would conduct ballistic tests on the gun and search it for fingerprints.
“Obviously, we have a case where a person is shot and finding a firearm in or near the area of the shooting is important,” he told the newspaper Wednesday.
Travis was shot in the head with a single bullet in the rural community of Midland, about 25 miles southeast of Terre Haute. Authorities said an autopsy performed on the toddler failed to find a bullet as it had passed through his head.
Ronald Bohannon was already in custody after being arrested Wednesday on a Vigo County warrant on unrelated charges of receiving stolen property.
Travis and his 4-year-old brother were at their father’s home for a weekend visit as Bohannon and his wife are in the midst of a divorce, police said.
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