The daughter and boyfriend of a 39-year-old woman shot and killed in southern Delaware told NBC10’s Tim Furlong that they want more answers into how their loved one could get shot by a hunter while walking in a field.
Maria Chilel Soto was walking with her boyfriend, Miniveldo, and his two children at around 7:40 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 18, in a field near her home in Ellendale, Sussex County, when she was shot in the stomach by a hunter who believed she was a deer, police said.
“All of a sudden I heard an explosion. She had covered her ears and she fell,” Miniveldo said through a translator.
Soto’s daughter ran from the house to reach her mother after the shooting.
“When I got there she was on the ground and she wasn’t like responding or anything,” her daughter said.
As Soto was dying from her injuries, police say 74-year-old Walter Moorhead of Salisbury, Maryland, walked up looking for a deer he believed he had shot.
The distance from which the shot was fired has not been confirmed. Moorhead reportedly fired from a ground-level obstacle hunters use to keep animals from spotting them.
“Once he got there he told him, ‘Why did he do that? Is he a psychopath? Is he racist?’ He was just asking for a reason,” a translator for Miniveldo said.
Miniveldo said Moorhead tried to run away but stopped after being told police were on the way and that Miniveldo was not going to let him leave.
State environmental officials told NBC10 that the land has a permit allowing hunting because of crop damage from deer. However, specific hunters must be on an approved list for the property.
It remains unclear whether Moorhead was approved to hunt on the property and whether he was permitted to hunt there at that time of day. Those questions are part of the ongoing investigation.
Moorhead has been charged with manslaughter and related charges. He posted bail and was released while awaiting trial.
NBC10’s call to Moorhead’s Maryland home was not answered.
Soto’s family, meanwhile, is planning her funeral and seeking answers about how the shooting happened.
“I don’t know if it was on purpose or anything, but it doesn’t seem right how he already got out,” Soto’s daughter said.
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC Philadelphia. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC Philadelphia journalist edited the article for publication.
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