Jaleah Carter, the cousin of 11-year-old Rodney Palmer, told us George accused her of the burglary. Police questioned her about it and left. Minutes later she says George returned with a shotgun.
She says she and a friend ran into the family's apartment. Moments later the shots were fired into the apartment. Carter and a nine-year-old cousin were struck, even as she was trying to get the children in a back room.
Rodney Palmer was asleep on a living room couch, Carter said. He was awakened by the shooting and raised his head.
"I kept telling him to get down," she said. "He was a good kid who didn't deserve to die."
The family moved out of the apartment even as the suspect was booked into the county jail, all, Carter says, over mistaken identity.
Carter has shotgun pellets lodged in her arm and leg. Her nine-year-old cousin remains hospitalized with shrapnel wounds.
