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A Columbia City man is dead after allegedly shooting himself in the head while playing with a handgun while intoxicated.
Seth Daniel Conley, 21, was pronounced dead at the scene. The shooting was ruled accidental.
According to the Warsaw Police Department, Conley and a friend, Billy Eugene Sitts Jr., 19, of 1904 Sand Dollar Drive, Warsaw, had been at a party prior to the incident. Sitts told police that he and Conley were both drinking and Conley was intoxicated.
Sitts and Michael Scott Cunningham, 19, both live at the apartment where the incident occurred.
Sitts and Cunningham told police Conley was playing with his gun - a Beretta .380-caliber semi-automatic - and was taking the magazine out and putting it back in.
Conley reportedly purchased the gun within the past few months and "fooled around with it" in front of the teens in the past, according to a police report.
Two 15-year-old boys and a 19-year-old also witnessed the shooting, but left before police were called to the 4:56 a.m. emergency.
Dustin Lee Spencer, 19, of 3556 Ind. 19S, Mentone, was arrested on a charge of public intoxication shortly after the shooting incident. He reportedly jumped into Pike Lake and swam across a point toward Biscayne Avenue, where he knocked on doors in an apparent attempt to locate a friend.
Police at first were told that Sitts and Cunningham were the only people present when the shooting took place, but after Spencer's arrest, learned of the presence of other witnesses.
The two 15-year-olds were not charged with any crimes and collaborated information that Conley was playing with the gun. One of the young teens told police that, while the gun was not loaded, Conley placed it to his head and pretended to pull the trigger, then fell to the floor as if he were shot.
When the shooting occurred, Conley reportedly got on his knees and put the pistol to his head. The gun then discharged. The weapon was found in Conley's right hand and there was a gunshot wound to the right side of his head. There was no exit wound, police said, and the spent casing was still in the chamber of the weapon. The fact that the casing was not ejected is consistent with having the barrel of the gun pressed firmly against Conley's head.
The incident remains under investigation.
His obituary appears on page 3A of today's Times-Union.
