Delaware: 74-year-old recreational hunter shoots woman he mistook for a deer

In the US state of Delaware, a 74-year-old recreational hunter shot dead a 39-year-old woman because, according to police, he mistook her for a deer.

The fatal shot was fired on Friday, 18 September 2026, at around 7.40 pm on an open field near Ellendale in Sussex County.

The victim, Santos Maria Chilel Soto of Georgetown, was walking across the field with a man and two children. At the same time, Walter Moorhead of Salisbury in the neighbouring state of Maryland was out recreational hunting for deer. According to Delaware State Police, he was sitting in a low, camouflaged ground blind, saw movement and fired his rifle because he believed he had seen a deer. The shot hit the 39-year-old woman. Emergency services treated her at the scene, but she was pronounced dead shortly afterwards in hospital.

Charges filed after fatal shot

Moorhead was arrested at the scene. Homicide investigators believe he fired the fatal shot. The public prosecutor has charged him with manslaughter, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and three counts of first-degree reckless endangerment. Following his arraignment before the magistrate's court, he was released on a cash bail of 43,000 US dollars.

Not a natural occurrence

The case illustrates the fatal consequence of disregarding the most basic safety rule when handling firearms: whoever shoots must identify their target beyond doubt. A person crossing an open field with two children and another adult must not become the target of a rifle shot because of an outline or a movement. That the shooter claims to have seen a red deer does not explain the death of Santos Maria Chilel Soto — it identifies the mistake: the shot was fired before the target had been safely identified.

In Switzerland too, people in the vicinity of recreational hunting are at risk. Official statistics record around 300 recognised hunting accidents per year. Purely mathematically, someone is injured every 29 hours. A complete, independent overview of all deaths and injuries caused by recreational hunters' weapons is still lacking to this day. The IG Wild beim Wild has therefore been calling for years for an upper age limit for recreational hunting as well as mandatory medical-psychological fitness assessments modelled on the Dutch example.

For Santos Maria Chilel Soto and her family, a walk across a field remains inseparably linked to a fatal shot. The case from Delaware joins the ranks of events in which a person dies from a weapon carried for a mere leisure activity.