A 16-year-old Harris County boy has died more than a week after being shot in the abdomen at a home on Dark Cavern Court, and his cousin — also a minor — now faces a manslaughter charge in connection with his death. Homicide detectives say the shooting happened as the cousin was trying to disassemble a handgun when it discharged, striking Joseph Kelly-Holloway.
According to ABC13 Houston, deputies with the Harris County Sheriff's Office first responded to the shooting on June 30 at a home in the 17200 block of Dark Cavern Ct. Kelly-Holloway was found with a gunshot wound to his abdomen and was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, per deputies. He died from his injury on July 10, according to the sheriff's office.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office formally issued a homicide news release for the case on August 5, more than three weeks after Kelly-Holloway's death, per the Harris County Sheriff's Office. The station's report notes that the teen's cousin was booked into the Harris County Juvenile Center and charged with manslaughter. Because both the victim and the suspect are minors, the cousin's identity has been withheld due to his age.
What Texas Law Says About the Charge
Under Texas Penal Code § 19.04, manslaughter is defined as recklessly causing the death of another person, and it is a second-degree felony carrying a punishment range of 2 to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000, according to Legal Match. Because the accused cousin is 16, the case will proceed through Harris County Juvenile Court, where prosecutors must decide whether to pursue a determinate sentence — which can run as long as 40 years — or petition to have the case certified and transferred to adult criminal court, per Varghese Summersett.
By pursuing a manslaughter charge rather than treating the shooting as a non-criminal accident, prosecutors are effectively arguing that attempting to disassemble a loaded firearm around another person amounted to reckless disregard for human life. Several open questions remain unresolved, including who owned the handgun, whether it was stored loaded and unlocked, and whether any adults in the home could face separate liability. Under Texas Penal Code § 46.13, storing or leaving a loaded gun accessible to a child under 17 without permission is illegal, and the offense escalates to a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a $4,000 fine and a year in jail if a child causes death or serious injury, according to the Texas Criminal Defense Group. It has not been reported whether any adult in the Dark Cavern Court home faces charges under that statute.
A Recurring Pattern in Harris County and Beyond
This is not the only unintentional teen shooting Harris County has seen this year. In an earlier Hoodline report, deputies investigated a June 3 incident on Spring Brook Pass in which an 18-year-old unintentionally shot a 16-year-old critically before two adults were found dead in the same home.
National data shows the pattern is far from isolated. A CDC analysis of National Violent Death Reporting System data found that 67% of fatal unintentional firearm injuries among children and teens happened while the child was playing with or showing a gun, and 85% occurred inside a home or apartment. The same CDC data found that 74% of the weapons involved in those cases were stored loaded, and 76% were stored unlocked at the time a child accessed them.
Everytown for Gun Safety recorded 13 unintentional shootings by children in Texas through the middle of 2026 alone, part of 160 such incidents nationwide that killed 54 people and injured 110 others, according to Everytown Research & Policy. The group also reports that firearms are the leading cause of death among children and teenagers in Texas, with an average of 492 youth dying from gun violence each year based on 2020–2024 CDC data.
State Efforts to Curb Accidental Shootings
Texas law already requires public school districts to distribute safe firearm storage materials to parents three times a year, an effort meant to encourage secure storage practices like trigger locks and gun safes, according to Richardson ISD. Whether such measures reached the household involved in Kelly-Holloway's death is unknown. For now, the case remains in the early stages of Harris County's juvenile justice system, with no word yet on whether prosecutors will seek a determinate sentence or move to certify the teen as an adult.
