HEBRON — The family of Karen Wrentzel, who was fatally shot by a hunter last month, reacted with shock and anger Wednesday to details released in a police affidavit Tuesday.
Robert Trundy, 38, has been charged with manslaughter.
Wrentzel’s uncle, Jon Spofford, said in an interview Wednesday that Trundy “must be held accountable for his careless decisions, and his refusal to take proper steps throughout the incident, despite any emotions he may have felt about his actions.”
Spofford said Trundy “displayed a total lack of regard for any human life beyond his own. I cannot forgive the taking of Karen’s life, when time after time, Robert Trundy failed to meet the requirements of a hunter, and as a human being, responsible for their actions.”
According to the police affidavit, Wrentzel screamed when Trundy shot her. The hunter thought to himself, “Deer don’t do that.”
Trundy had walked about three-quarters of the way to Wrentzel when he saw a rake leaning against a rock. It was at that point, according to the affidavit, that Trundy suspected he had shot someone, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk the rest of the distance to Wrentzel.
“Honestly, I couldn’t go down there,” he told District Game Warden Anthony Gray. “If I don’t see it, it’s out of my mind.”
Beverly Spofford, who said she knew of the Trundy family, but didn’t know them personally, said the new development put the situation, and her loss, in a whole new light.
“I’m so angry,” Wrentzel’s grandmother said. “He thought he heard a scream, and yet could not go down there and say, ‘Sorry’ or even call 911.”
“I’m so disappointed in humanity,” said Wrentzel’s friend, Sarah Ziehm.
The affidavit also revealed that Trundy did not see his target clearly identified as a deer before firing, and the fact that Wrentzel wasn’t wearing orange is a “nonissue,” according to her mother’s cousin, Joan Joy Tibbetts.
“There are rules for the road and there are rules for the woods,” Tibbetts wrote in a Facebook post. “This man Trundy did not follow the rules, and the result is, he killed Karen.”
Tibbetts added, “He didn’t have a line of sight. I would like to see the situation improve, so that deer are the only thing getting shot during hunting season, and truth be told, the change has to be made by the person holding the gun, not the person doing laundry, hanging out by the barn, or digging for rocks.”
Wrentzel, 34, was on her property on Greenwood Mountain Road digging for gemstones when she was shot at about 10:30 a.m. Oct. 28, the first day of resident deer hunting season.
emarquis@sunmediagroup.net
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