A 74-year-old Virginia woman faces a felony charge after shooting at a car driven into her backyard.
Nancy Blough was alone in her Warrenton home when 29-year-old Kaitlyn Yonts backed her car up the driveway and into the backyard, police said. The car struck Blough’s car, knocked down a retaining wall and tore up grass.
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The sound woke up Blough, who went out her front door with a gun.
She told police she fired three shots as the car pulled down the driveway. One struck the passenger side door.
Blough called police.
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A few blocks away, Gary Schopmeyer and his wife discovered Yonts drove off the road, plowed through their yard, and stopped just short of crashing through a gate and into a ravine. They called 911.
“I was hearing all this commotion, and I looked out and I saw a car down there by the gate, and she was out of her car just screaming and yelling, obscene language, everything,” Schopmeyer said.
The officer who responded believed Yonts was under the influence of alcohol and possibly drugs.
“Ms. Yonts was so unsteady on her feet that she stumbled into me ... and nearly fell over several times,” the officer wrote.
“When asked if she was the one shot at, she said, ‘No,’” the officer wrote.
Blough told the officer she feared for her life “as she didn’t know how many people were in the car,” the officer wrote.
She was charged with reckless discharge of a firearm and unlawful discharge of a firearm into an occupied vehicle.
Blough’s attorney, Mark Williams, said he hopes he can fight the felony charge by showing his client was so fearful she fired her weapon in self-defense.
Yonts, who was charged with being intoxicated in public, declined to comment.
