The sound of a single gunshot reverberated through the apartment complex Friday around 10 p.m., witnesses said.
“I heard the gun pop off,” a woman who was nearby told WJRT. “I heard yelling and screaming and I came down to see if I could assist anybody.”
The shot she heard came from a gun that had accidentally gone off at a birthday party in the Merrill, Mich., apartment complex, according to the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Office.
Zachary Woodcock, 20, had brought the gun out at a party on his friend Richard Skillman’s 21st birthday, the Midland Daily News reports. The shot Woodcock unintentionally fired hit Skillman in the chest, killing him at the scene, deputies said.
“From what I heard, they were best of friends,” Lt. Mike Gomez told WJRT.
There were many people at the party, deputies said, and a lot of them were drinking. As other friends tried to give Skillman medical care and called police, Woodcock left the apartment complex, realizing he’d killed his friend, Gomez said. Once outside, Woodcock shot himself just minutes later, MLive reports.
"They heard a shot, walked out and there he was," Gomez told WJRT.
Woodcock was taken to the hospital Friday night, where he died over the weekend.
“Any time firearms and alcohol are involved in the same incident, bad things are going to happen,” Gomez told NBC 25.
Skillman had been a student at Baker College of Owosso and drove trucks for Crop Production Services in Henderson, Mich. He was also an avid hunter and fisherman, according to his obituary.
Woodcock also worked as a truck driver, according to an obituary in the Kalamazoo Gazette, and enjoyed hunting, fishing, camping and taking motorcycle trips with his father.
Both men liked and collected guns, deputies told WJRT. Deputies seized about 10 guns from the apartment and from Skillman’s vehicle at the complex.
“They were each armed with multiple guns,” Gomez told the TV station.
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