by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — A tragedy in which a 12-year-old girl shot her 12-year-old step sister on Aug. 6, 2021 is now making its way through the Sumner County Court. The case is unusual not only for its circumstances but for the charges levied against the defendants. 

Jarod Bruey, 42, of Caldwell and his wife, Sarah Bruey, 41, of 1531S. Blackstone Road, west of Caldwell have both been charged with murder in the first degree (a felony murder rule). They have also been charged with aggravated endangering of a child, also a felony.

Jarod Bruey

Sumner County Attorney Larry Marczynski has formally charged the couple in connection to an accidental shooting in which a 12-year-old juvenile accidentally shot her 12-year-old stepsister in the face, west of Caldwell using a Hi-Standard 9-shot .22 revolver.

What makes this case rather unusual is prosecutor Marczynski has invoked the felony murder rule allowing the defendant to be charged with first-degree murder for a killing that they were not directly involved. The prosecution is saying it was their actions that led to the accidental shooting deliberately caused what a Sedgwick County Forensic Center autopsy described as a homicide.

Sarah Bruey

The case is in its infancy in the court system. The lawyers has their first hearing on March 11, and the case has been continued to April 12 at 4 p.m. A preliminary hearing, which establishes whether or not there is enough evidence to bound the two defendants over for a trial, has yet to be set. 

Both Jarod and Sarah will be tried separately and have hired two separate attorneys. Jarod has hired Ian Clark who will be co-counseled by Dragan Ivetic, an attorney who practices in Chicago.

Ivetic is a high-profile attorney, who has practiced law around the world including the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and the State Court of Bosnia-Herzgovina. According to his website, Ivetic has handled civil and criminal litigation matters all over the world, including what the website describes: “acting as defense counsel in some of the most high profile international war-crimes cases since World War 2.”

Sarah has hired Kurt Kerns, a defense lawyer out of Wichita, who has been involved with many high-profile criminal cases in the area.

District Judge Francis Meisenheimer, who lives in Kingman, is presiding over the case. One of the issues yet to be resolved, is if this goes to trial, whether or not it will be held in Sumner County or at another venue.

At the heart of the issue, in order to get a murder in the first-degree conviction, Marczynski will need to prove that Jarod and/or Sarah were not only negligent but actions were the cause of the 12-year-old’s death. 

Sumner Newscow has obtained a redacted affidavit from Sumner County Detective Tyler Carmichael that led to the arrest of the Brueys. 

The following is a synopsis of the affidavit. For simplicity purposes, the shooter will be referred to as Girl 1 and the victim as Girl 2. 

The morning 

On the morning of Aug. 6, Jarod and Sarah went to do farm work and told deputies they left to go across the street from the house to work on tractors and do general farm work, leaving their daughters alone in the house.

  The two girls woke up around 10 a.m. Girl 1 would later tell authorities they were best friends, who spent time with one another 24/7. They got up and switched on the television to watch a cartoon anime show.

About 10 to 15 minutes later, Girl 1 got up to clean the kitchen. But on her way, she noticed a revolver sitting on top of the gun case. The gun cabinet was in the dining room adjacent to the living room, where Girl 2 was sitting on the couch. 

Girl 1 said she got distracted and picked up the gun to just look it. She described it as looking like a gun from an old Western movie with a white handle. 

She said she picked up the gun and started messing with it. Girl 1 later told authorities that Girl 2 had told her there were no bullets in it. Girl 1 told authorities later that her parents told them that there were only two guns loaded in the house. One was a 9mm handgun in the bedroom, and a hunting rifle next to the gun cabinet.

Girl 1 wasn’t pointing it at Girl 2 at first. She started to pull a trigger, maybe three or four times and nothing happened. She later told authorities she could not remember how many times she pulled the trigger.

She then pointed it at Girl 2 and pulled the trigger again. 

This time, it went off. 

She told authorities: 

“After the shot,  ____ put her hands up to her head and I figured it was because of the loud noise… She was just holding her face and began to cough up blood. She kept trying to stand up and I told her to sit down.  At some point, she tried to stand up, but fell down to the ground.”

Girl 1 would put the gun back on the cabinet and called 911. When she got onto the phone with 911, the dispatcher walked her through life-saving measures. This process lasted more than 10 minutes. At the 8 minute and 7-second mark of the 911 call, she told the dispatcher, that Girl 2 was not responding or breathing anymore. The dispatcher walked her through how to perform CPR. At around the 13 minutes and 35 second mark, Girl 1 began to cry and said, “I think I just killed my litter sister.” The dispatch asked what? and she said ‘I just killed her.’

It was then that Sarah entered the house and yelled, “what is going on?” At that time, the two left the house and a sheriff officer took over CPR. The call ended at 18 minutes and 1 second. Girl 2 would die soon after. 

Sheriff detective arrives

After the initial investigation, detective Carmichael said there were 17 firearms taken out of the house, eight were loaded which included two handguns, four rifles, and two shotguns. The firearms were loaded in different capacities. The revolver used in the shooting was an older gun that once belonged to Sarah’s grandmother. It was a standard revolver with a nine-shot cylinder. Upon investigation, the gun had five empty slots for bullets. However, there was one with a spent casing and three more bullets inside. 

Carmichael said in the affidavit that perhaps Girl 1 had pulled the trigger three or four times with nothing happening before pulling the trigger with the bullet while pointing the gun at her step-sister, thinking the chamber was still empty. 

During his investigation, guns were haphazardly placed throughout the house. Three guns were sitting out in plain view and two were leaning against the wall with the barrel facing up. Two were Winchester rifles that were loaded on both sides of the gun cabinet. 

The gun cabinet with a glass door was not locked. There was a wooden chair pushed against the gun cabinet with boxes sitting on it. Carmichael had moved the chair and the glass door swung open and was not locked. He attempted to close the door to see if it would stay closed without the chair and it would not. There were four firearms in the cabinets – a couple with live rounds. On top of the gun cabinet, there were several boxes of ammunition or .22, 30-30, .17 win mag, 9mm, and loose shotgun rounds. 

A Taurus 9MM handgun was sitting on a nightstand unsecured from any holder, gun lock, or safe in the bedroom where the couple slept. It was loaded. 

There was a walk-in closet next to a teenage bedroom with a built-in cabinet and a firearm sitting in a soft case leaning vertically among some clothes. Carmichael pulled the gun case out that was holding a shotgun, a Winchester 12 Ga. Model 1987. This shotgun was loaded with one shell in the chamber and one in the magazine tube. Sitting directly behind the shotgun was another Winchester which was cleared. 

There were several board games in the closet and underneath the Operation game was a Remington box. Carmichael opened this box and located a Bersasa 9mm handgun. This firearm was sitting with several other rounds of ammunition both loose and in some boxes. 

An autopsy was performed at the Sedgwick County Forensic Center and according to a preliminary report, the gunshot bullet entered the right cheek, went through the mandible, down into the larynx, through the left carotid artery, and was located behind her left scapula. It was determined to be a homicide.

In a subsequent interview on Aug. 16, Sarah Bruey said one of the reasons they liked to keep guns in the house was because the couple found some disturbing conversations on her daughter’s cell phone. A couple of boys had sent her disturbing text messages. 

Sarah also said they kept guns around for the deer hunting season, although the deputy noted it was in August when the crime occurred and the deer season was not until November. 

She said she felt the guns were there for the protection of the girls because she and Jarod were farming all the time. She also said she didn’t think a lot about having these guns, because she and Jarod grew up in a house filled with guns as well. 

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