A mother has been sentenced to 10 years in prison over the shotgun blast death of her five-year-old son, who died when he was left at home alone with his young siblings and loaded firearms.
Bobbie Jo Scott, 27, pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree child endangerment causing death on Thursday in Hartville, Missouri in connection with the July 2 death of Timothy Deatherage Jr.
Scott was immediately sentenced to 10 years of prison in the Missouri Department of Corrections.
According to investigators, Scott and her live-in boyfriend Cory D.H. Gass left three children, ages three, five and seven, alone in their home in the Ozarks while they went to pick up a paycheck in a town about 45 miles away.
Scott and Gass had asked a neighbor to check on the children, but did not have anyone physically responsible to care for them, a police report said.
While they were gone, Timothy suffered a fatal blast from a 12 gauge shotgun.
Police found a loaded shotgun and loaded .22 caliber rifle in the room that the children were in.
Gass told investigators that the shotgun was his and that it was stored on the floor behind the chair in the living room where Timothy's body was found.
Gass also said that three weeks prior to the incident he took the child outside and showed him how the shotgun worked.