A 20-year-old Jacksonville woman has been arrested after she allegedly accidentally killed a 19-year-old teenager while using a rifle as a prop for a TikTok video.
Aniyah Womack, 19, was shot in the stomach in May. She was taken to a hospital where she died hours later.
Mariah Clayton, 20, was identified as the suspected shooter and arrested on a manslaughter charge last week, per News4Jax. According to an arrest warrant, Clayton initially said she riding in a car with a man when she saw Womack on a sidewalk, picked her up, and took her to the hospital.
The man, who was driving the car, later told investigators that he went to an apartment complex to buy weed when people at the apartment claimed Womack shot herself and needed a ride to the hospital.
After interviewing people who were inside the apartment, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office concluded that Clayton and Womack were in the bathroom filming TikTok videos when the 19-year-old was accidentally shot and killed. One witness told police that Clayton was wielding an "all-black rifle" as Womack filmed her popping out of the shower with the gun.
At one point during the night, a man entered the room to try to take the rifle from Clayton before it went off, the sheriff's office said.
“Clayton, while attempting to film Tik-Tok videos, was inappropriately handling the rifle and was culpably negligent in her actions even after being told that she should not be playing with the rifle,” her arrest warrant reads. “The culpably negligent actions of Ms. Clayton led her to be directly responsible for the death of Aniyah Womack.”
Clayton is being held on a $250,000 bond and is expected back in court later this month.
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