Man reportedly claims he accidentally shot his girlfriend in the head

Left: Deangelo Mitchell (Shelby County Jail). Right: Jyrah Smith (Obituary).

A Tennessee man offered an excuse of mistaken identity for the recent shooting death of his girlfriend, Volunteer State police say.

Deangelo Mitchell is facing one charge of second-degree murder in the death of Jyrah Smith, a 23-year-old mother of three who passed away after being shot at close range with a shotgun in the early hours of May 23.

Smith was discovered with a single gunshot wound to her head just outside Mitchell’s second-story apartment on East Georgia Avenue in Memphis. Inside the residence, law enforcement recovered a spent shotgun shell, as detailed in an arrest report from local NBC station WMC-TV.

The defendant, however, was initially nowhere to be seen, police say. Mitchell was arrested after turning himself in later that same day.

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During questioning while in police custody, Mitchell chose to forgo his Miranda rights and provided an account of the incident, claiming he was awakened by noises and knocking outside his front door.

Mitchell identified the voices as male and female, according to police.

“[S]o he armed himself with a shotgun,” the affidavit reads.

The affidavit says the fatal shot was fired after some kind of an argument.

When the door opened, the defendant squeezed the trigger, he allegedly said, because he thought he saw “a man with dreads,” according to the court document. Then, without recognizing who he shot, Mitchell said he disposed of the shotgun and left the scene.

“Investigators found no evidence that Mitchell attempted to render aid, and no record that he attempted to call an ambulance,” the affidavit goes on.

The victim, of course, was actually Mitchell’s girlfriend, found by her brother while he was leaving for work, family previously told WMC-TV.

That same brother also told police the defendant had threatened to kill Smith and her three children — ages 1, 3 and 6. The children are currently in the care of Smith’s father.

“She didn’t tell me about this situation, I didn’t even know she was dating this man,” the slain woman’s father told Memphis-based CBS affiliate WREG. “They try to keep their personal life away from me because I’m their dad. I’m not their friend.”

“Only thing I do know is that he recently moved in the apartment complex where my daughter actually was staying and they started dating and they were dating for only two months,” Smith’s father told Memphis-based Fox affiliate WHBQ.

The grieving parent also identified the killing as an incident of domestic violence that could have and should have been prevented.

“He also had a bond condition that he broke and he should have been in jail as of right now,” the elder Smith said. “But the system failed. If the system did not fail, I believe my daughter would still be here.”