Four years after her 20-year-old daughter was killed by a stray bullet at a birthday party, a Gretna mother is driving across Nebraska and reaching out to parents in other states, trying to turn her grief into a national law. Amber Wood says she is fighting to make sure repeat violent felons cannot slip back onto the streets unnoticed the way the man who killed her daughter, Karly Rain Wood, did.
Wood recently drove an hour to the public library in Hooper, Nebraska, as part of that effort, according to KTIV. She told the station she feels obligated to keep working on her daughter's behalf and to use her voice, adding that she wants to prevent another family from losing a child the way hers did.
“She’s now working to convince parents in other states to push for legislation,” the station reported, describing Wood's push to replicate the proposed law in statehouses beyond Nebraska. Wood has also created a website and a call to action aimed at parents across the country, according to the same report.
A Birthday Party Turned Deadly
Karly was struck eight times after she was caught in crossfire at a birthday party, per KTIV's account. Court testimony described four guns being fired inside a small room at 34th and Ames in Omaha, and the station reported that witnesses acted as though they had not seen anything when detectives later asked questions.
A separate account from the Kearney Hub places the shooting at a house at 3347 Ames Ave. in November 2022, reporting that Karly Rain Wood, 20, was shot eight times there. The two accounts describe the location differently, and the dossier does not resolve whether they refer to the same address.
Wood says the man convicted of killing her daughter was a four-time convicted felon who was still on the streets when Karly was killed, according to KTIV's reporting. She also said two other men involved in the killing were repeat felons who remain free, telling the station, “there's still two other guys out there that killed Karly.”
The Push for a National Registry
The proposed Karly Rain Wood Act would establish the Karly Rain Wood Repeat Violent Felon Registration and Notification Program inside the U.S. Department of Justice, according to the bill text posted on GovInfo. Under the proposal, people convicted of qualifying violent offenses — including murder and kidnapping — would be required to register if they have two or more such convictions, and registered offenders would have to provide their name, address and vehicle information. The public could search the registry database.
Nebraska Rep. Mike Flood introduced the program, and Sen. Pete Ricketts submitted a companion bill in the U.S. Senate, with U.S. Representatives Don Bacon and Adrian Smith listed as co-sponsors, per KTIV's reporting. Flood said the bill borrows an approach that has already worked for sex offenders.
The Senate measure is identified as S. 5245 and the House measure as H.R. 10552, according to GovInfo's bill listing. A congressional record shows S. 5245 was read twice and referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Aug. 5, 2026, according to information attributed to Sen. Deb Fischer's office on Congress.gov.
Open Questions on Effectiveness
A National Institute of Justice study examined whether one state's sex-offender registration and notification policy reduced sexual violence.
Separately, Bureau of Justice Statistics material cited in connection with this story found that close to one-third of state prisoners recidivated within three years, and one-quarter within two years or less. A 2006 report from the Connecticut General Assembly, examining violent-offender registries in other states, found that the systems it reviewed generally required 10 years of registration for first-time offenders and lifetime registration for repeat offenders, with some offenders required to register for life.
For now, Wood's focus remains local and personal: one library visit, one conversation, one state at a time, as she works to make sure, in her words, that everyone is going to know Karly's name.
