A six-year-old boy is dead after being shot in the head at a home in rural western Lawrence County, and while an autopsy has officially classified his death as a homicide, the county's sheriff says his investigators believe it was a tragic accident. The boy has been identified as Bridger Ransom Boggs, the nephew of Missouri State Representative Mitch Boggs, who represents District 157.
Lawrence County 911 received a call reporting a shooting involving a child on August 28, and deputies were dispatched to the scene in rural western Lawrence County, according to KY3. Dispatchers believed the child was already deceased by the time the call came in, and Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers also responded to assist local deputies. Once on scene, deputies and troopers determined the child had died from an apparent gunshot wound to the head, KY3 reported. Separately, KSN-TV reported that emergency personnel and deputies responded to a call late Friday afternoon regarding an unresponsive child with a gunshot wound to the head, and that Bridger died after being accidentally shot by another child at the home near Stotts City.
Investigators secured the scene, and the Lawrence County coroner took possession of the boy's body before conducting an autopsy. That autopsy was completed Monday and officially ruled the cause of death a homicide resulting from a gunshot, per the sheriff's office. The case remains open, and investigators say it may take time to complete.
Why a Homicide Ruling Doesn't Mean a Crime
The word “homicide” on an autopsy report can be misleading to readers unfamiliar with how medical examiners classify deaths. Under Missouri Revised Statutes Section 58.451, coroners and medical examiners must select one of five standard manners of death — natural, accident, suicide, homicide, or undetermined — and any death directly caused by another person is recorded as a homicide for medico-legal purposes, regardless of whether criminal charges are ultimately warranted, according to the Revised Statutes of Missouri. In other words, the classification indicates that one person caused the death of another, but it does not by itself distinguish murder from an accident.
That distinction is central to this case. The Lawrence County Sheriff's Office believes the shooting was a tragic accident, and investigators believe there was no foul play or suspicious circumstances, the sheriff's office said. Sheriff Brad DeLay, who has served in the role for more than three decades, has said deputies found no evidence of foul play and that all investigative reports will be forwarded to the Lawrence County Prosecutor's Office for review once the investigation concludes, according to the Lawrence County Record.
A Political Family Grieves in Rural Lawrence County
Bridger's uncle, Representative Mitch Boggs, has served District 157 in the Missouri House since January 2021, representing all of Lawrence County as a Republican resident of La Russell, near where the shooting occurred, according to the Missouri House of Representatives. Following his nephew's death, Rep. Boggs released a family statement requesting prayers and privacy. The Lawrence County Sheriff's Office, which oversaw the response, now operates out of a $23 million, 34,258-square-foot Law Enforcement Center in Mt. Vernon that opened in December 2024, replacing a 1986 jail and consolidating detention and sheriff operations under a voter-approved county sales tax.
Missouri Has No Law Requiring Secure Gun Storage
The tragedy also lands amid an unresolved statehouse debate over child access to firearms. Missouri currently does not require gun owners to securely store their weapons or penalize adults when a child accesses an unsecured firearm, making it one of 24 states without a Child Access Prevention law, according to the Giffords Law Center. Missouri lawmakers introduced House Bill 2401 earlier this year to require secure storage, but the bill stalled in committee. Missouri has considered child-access legislation before: a Missouri Senate record dated Sep 30, 1999, described HB391 as establishing “The Children's Firearm Accident and Prevention Act,” including crimes of criminal storage of a firearm.
The absence of such a law is reflected in the numbers. Everytown for Gun Safety research found Missouri ranked fourth nationally for the rate of unintentional shootings by children, recording 129 such incidents between 2015 and 2023, per the Everytown Support Fund. Nationally, 2023 was the worst year on record for unintentional shootings by children, with more than 400 incidents recorded and over 70 percent occurring in or around homes, according to Everytown Research & Policy. CDC mortality data analyzed by Everytown also shows firearms are the leading cause of death among children and teens in Missouri, averaging 108 youth firearm deaths per year, with the state ranking fifth overall in the nation for its total gun death rate among youth. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 83% of unintentional firearm injury deaths among children and adolescents occurred among boys, while 85% of victims were fatally injured at a house. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report dated 29 Apr 2019 found that most children who died of unintentional firearm injuries were shot by another child in their own age range.
For now, the investigation into Bridger's death remains open. Once complete, the sheriff's office has said all reports will be forwarded to the Lawrence County Prosecutor's Office for review, leaving the ultimate legal outcome undetermined as the community and the Boggs family grieve.
