Police investigating shooting

Woodward Police detectives are investigating a shooting that occurred in the 2900 block of Edgewood Drive Tuesday afternoon.

Police and other emergency personnel responded to the area after receiving a call about a woman being shot in the head around 1:49 p.m.

“The call originally came in as a self-inflicted wound, but we’re sill looking into it,” said Det. Lt. Chuck Wheeler.

“We’re not ruling anything out at this point,” Wheeler said, noting that no determination has been made as to whether the incident was an attempted suicide or attempted homicide.

“Everything is still open; we’re trying to look at the whole picture,” he said. “We’re going to wait and see what the evidence shows.”

The 50-year-old female victim received a single gunshot wound to the “forehead area,” Wheeler said, noting the weapon used “appears to be a little .25 semi-automatic pistol.”

She was first taken to Woodward Regional Hospital, he said, but was later “medi-flighted to St. Anthony’s in Oklahoma City,” Wheeler said.

“To my knowledge she is still alive,” Wheeler said in an interview Tuesday evening.

The detectives remained on the scene until after 4 p.m. continuing to collect evidence and information. The police focused their investigation on the home’s garage which is where the shooting is believed to have occurred.

Wheeler said the woman was supposedly visiting the 56-year-old male who lives in the home as the two are “friends, so they tell me.”

The two were hanging out in the garage, he said, when the male “went inside to get a drink and that’s when he heard the shot.”

The male was later tested for gun shot residue (GSR) by agents from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, who are assisting in the investigation, Wheeler said, noting it will take some time to get the results from the GSR test.

The GSR test is “just part of our investigation,” he said, adding “it’s standard for us to do that.”

The detective noted that the gun, which belonged to the male subject, was taken into evidence and will be sent off for analysis at the OSBI lab. But the bullet has yet to be recovered, he said.

The male subject was later taken to the police station for further questioning, Wheeler said, but no arrest was made.

In addition to talking to a home’s occupant, the police were also able to obtain a statement from Scott Crook who said he heard the gunshot.

Scott Crook, who lives down a side street from the residence, said he was taking his garbage out and “heard a gunshot and someone scream.”

“The weird thing is I thought it was kids playing in (nearby) apartments,” he said. “Because we’ve heard shots before, but it hasn’t been nothing like this.”

In fact, Scott Crook just continued about his business, making a trip to a local store without thinking much about the sounds he heard until he returned and found his neighborhood filled with police officers.

He said he was talking to a fellow neighbor about what was going on and mentioned that he had heard a shot earlier when “she told me I should tell the police,” which prompted him to give a statement.

“Normally we wouldn’t be home around this time,” Scott Crook said. “We would be working. (But) we’re on vacation. Just got back from Ponca City this morning.”

“This is crazy,” his wife Tammy Crook said, noting “stuff like this doesn’t happen around here. It happens at the apartments all the time, but not in this neighborhood.”

The couple has lived in the area for the past 11 months, Tammy Crook said.

During that time, they said they have often seen a man working outside the residence where the shooting occurred, but rarely saw a woman.

“They’ve always been real quiet,” Tammy Crook said. “They never argue and you seem him out cleaning the yard, keeping it nice. There was nothing to indicate anything was going on.”

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