VA: Man killed in hunting accident in Campbell County
By Dave Thompson
Published: January 3, 2009
An Appomattox man is dead after he was shot by a member of his own
hunting party in Campbell County on Saturday afternoon, according to
officials with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Sgt. Chris Thomas said Benjamin Lee Mowyer, 28, was struck in the
head with a single buckshot pellet fired from the gun of an 18-year-old
who thought he was shooting at a deer.
The accident, which Thomas said occurred at about 1:45 p.m., is the
second fatal hunting accident in Campbell County in the 2008-2009
hunting season.
The group was hunting off of East Ferry Road, about two miles south
of Rustburg, Thomas said, and was crossing a cutover, an area where the
timber had been cut down.
Thomas said the timber had been cut several years ago, and thick
brush had grown up since then.
The group, all wearing the proper blaze orange, was trying to flush
out deer.
“The shooter saw what he thought was a deer, fired one shot, and one
buckshot pellet struck the victim in the head,” Thomas said.
Mowyer was pronounced dead at the scene, he said.
Thomas said Mowyer was wearing Carhartt bib overalls and a white long
john shirt, but because of the thick growth, may have been less visible.
The name of the shooter was not released, because of the continuing
investigation.
The first Campbell County hunting fatality of the season occurred on
Nov. 21, when James Michael DeBrular, 56, of Halifax, accidentally shot
himself in a homemade deer stand near Red House.
That accident came within two weeks of a fatal accident in
Pittsylvania County, that left Wayne Phillip Logan, 57, dead.
Logan’s firearm discharged as he was climbing through brush while
rabbit hunting in Gretna.
