Brittany Swoverland

WARSAW — A Goshen woman is facing charges after a child fired a rifle and a bullet entered a nearby home.

Brittany Lee Swoverland, 28, with addresses listed as both 266 Winchester Trails, Goshen, and 920 Anchorage Road #25, Warsaw, is being charged with dangerous control of a child, a level 5 felony; and neglect of a dependent, a level 6 felony. 

According to the affidavit of probable cause, on Jan. 5, an officer with the Warsaw Police Department was dispatched to a residence in Kosciusko County in reference to shots being fired. The officer observed a bullet hole in the kitchen wall of the residence. The bullet traveled into the freezer. The expanded bullet was located inside the freezer and photographed by police. 

Two adults and three children were in the residence at the time the bullet was fired into the home.

Police searched the area to locate where the bullet was fired from. According to the affidavit of probable cause, a male approached the officers and advised that the bullet had been fired from his residence by a child. The officer went to the male’s residence and was shown the firearm that was fired, a Mauser 95 rifle with an ammunition sleeve on the buttstock containing ammunition. 

The male advised that he, Swoverland and a minor child were watching television in the living room while the another child was alone in a separate room where the rifle was kept, with the door closed.  According to the male, the firearm was unloaded, but the ammunition and the rifle were kept in the same closet. The male claimed that the child located the rifle, loaded it and fired it in the room with the door closed. Swoverland confirmed this series of events.

The male further stated that he had taken the child to a shooting range in the past and that the child knew how to load and unload the rifle.

The male was booked in the Kosciusko County Jail Feb. 22, with a $10,250 surety and cash bond. Swoverland was booked at the Kosciusko County Jail May 6 on a $500 cash bond.