A Texas woman is facing manslaughter charges after accidentally shooting her boyfriend to death while posing for a photo with a rifle.
20-year-old Autumn King was taken into custody by the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force on Jan. 14 in Pflugerville and has been booked into the Travis County jail.
Austin police say the shooting occurred at the couple's home on Dec. 23. Investigators allege that King said she aimed the rifle her boyfriend, 26-year-old Eric Charles Allen, as he held her cellphone and prepared to take a photo to post online. King says she accidentally fired.
The Travis County Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death was from a gunshot wound and the manner of death as a homicide.
King told officers, "she had the rifle pointed towards Eric and that the assault rifle 'went off,'" officials wrote in an affidavit filed in court. "Autumn said that Eric dropped to the ground, but Autumn thought that Eric was 'playing,' and she told him to get up."
"She said, 'I didn't even pull it (the trigger), I just barely touched it,'" officials said King told them as part of her statement. She later told investigators, "she was trying to be like Bonnie and Clyde."
When she realized Allen was bleeding, King told police she first tried to drag him to the car and when she couldn't, she ran outside to call for help and called 911.
A phone recovered from the scene contained a video showing that the couple argued for about 15 minutes before the 911 call was placed, officials said.
“Based on what the video shows the argument between the two is about them both cheating on each other and justification for doing so,” according to the arrest affidavit.
The couple's two children were in the house at the time of the incident.
King faces a second-degree felony charge of manslaughter in connection with Allen's death. she is being held on a $200,000 bond.
