4-year-old: ‘My whole family is dead’By KATIE LESLIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Minutes after a woman escaped a shooting rampage and called 911, neighbor Samantha Manchester watched from the street as Gwinnett County police surrounded the two-story home on Clairidge Lane.
An officer pounded on the door, she said, but no one was prepared for who answered: a 4-year-old girl with a gunshot wound to her chest.
Manchester said an officer grabbed the child and whisked her away from the site where police say Richard Ringold, 44, shot five people, killing four.
Manchester and another neighbor tried to comfort the girl as paramedics cut off her bloodied clothing and began treatment, she said.
“The little girl was so strong. She was not crying,” Manchester said. “When they were tearing off her clothes, she looked around at all of us and all she could say was ‘My whole family is dead.’”
It’s unclear which relatives may have died in Thursday’s shooting. Manchester said the little girl lives with her mother, a sister around the age of 9 and a grandmother at the home.
Police say two females and one male were dead at the scene, and a woman believed to be in her 20s was taken to Gwinnett Medical Center, where she died a short time later, Gwinnett police spokeswoman Cpl. Illana Spellman said.
The little girl was taken to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite for surgery, Spellman said.
Ringold, who police say was arrested after he returned to the crime scene, faces charges including four counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault. He is being held without bond.
Manchester said she is consumed with thoughts of the injured girl, who may have helped police quickly identify the shooter.
“I feel so sad for her,” Manchester said. “This little girl will be traumatized the rest of her life.”
