Michelle Yeagher is accused of walking up to a man watching “Toy Story” with a 12-year-old boy and shooting him once in below his rib cage at a home in Killingly on Monday.
Yeagher, 65, faces charges of murder, carrying a firearm while under the influence, risk of injury to a child and first-degree reckless endangerment, according to Connecticut State Police.
State police allege that she shot 39-year-old Andrew Michael Olson of Canterbury while he was visiting a home on Pratt Road where Yeagher resides, the incident report supporting the charges said.
Troopers responded to the home at 9:21 p.m. on the report of a man being shot in the chest and made contact with a 40-year-old man, according to the report. Olson was found nearby lying on his back just inside the front door suffering from a gunshot wound to his lower right torso just below his rib cage. He was taken to Day Kimball Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 10:44 p.m., the report said.
A 12-year-old boy who was in the home told authorities he was watching “Toy Story” with Olson when Yeagher “came into the room and shot him,” according to the report. There was no indication in the report that the boy was injured.
Troopers who searched the home found Yeagher lying on a bed in a bedroom on the opposite side of the house from where the victim was found, the report said. Troopers alleged that she appeared “highly intoxicated” and was naked from the waist down, only wearing a sweater, according to the report.
She complied when told to show her hands and allegedly told troopers she did not know where the gun was, the report said. When asked what happened, Yeagher allegedly told police “he tried to kill me” and that she had shot “him,” according to the report.
Yeagher was handcuffed and allegedly went on to tell police, “He came after me, I shot him,” the report said. She allegedly told troopers she was in her bedroom when Olson came after her, at which point she was trying to unlock her gun safe, which she said took a while, according to the report.
On the floor beside the bed, state police found a small black safe and a 9mm cartridge, the report said.
Yeagher, who had a cut to her head, was taken to the same hospital as the victim. At the hospital, she allegedly told authorities she was upset about “dealing with issues” throughout the day so she started drinking, the report said. Olson and the boy came over and she said she went to bed a “while later,” according to the report.
Yeagher said she later awoke “terrified for some reason” and went to her gun safe to retrieve her firearm, according to the report. She allegedly said she could not remember if she got into the safe or not but recalled fidgeting with the key, state police wrote in the report.
The “next thing she remembered” was hearing the 40-year-old man in the home in “distress” before she saw someone injured lying on the floor, according to the report. She told police she has a Smith and Wesson 9mm pistol registered to her and that neither of the other men who were in the home own any firearms, the report said.
Yeagher was released from the hospital just before 6:30 a.m. the morning after the shooting and was arrested. She appeared before a judge later in the day in Danielson Superior Court, where a judge ordered her held in lieu of a $1 million bond.
Yeagher did not enter a plea during the hearing. She remains in custody and is due back in court on Dec. 11, court records reviewed Thursday said.
Online court records did not reflect an attorney filing an appearance in the case on Yeagher’s behalf.