https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/i-forgive-him-lancaster-woman-accidentally-shot-through-wall-by/article_bbd41a9c-4746-11e8-8ed4-27a8de3a6ba5.html
TOM KNAPP | Staff Writer | April 23, 2018
A 38-year-old Lancaster woman, who was shot in the head when a next-door neighbor accidentally fired a gun through the wall on April 15, has died, her husband said Monday evening.
Nelmarys Rivera-Alequin was lying in bed in her home in the 200 block of East Liberty Street when a bullet came through the wall and hit her in the head, police said.
Her husband, Jose Arroyo, said he and his son, Zion, made the decision on Sunday to take her off life support. She died, he said, shortly before 5 p.m. Monday.
"My wife just passed away, about an hour ago," Arroyo, choking back a sob, said at around 5:30 p.m. "But I'm good. I'm at peace. The kids are fine.
"We knew this time was coming. We said our piece, we said goodbye."
Rivera-Alequin, who has been in the trauma unit at Lancaster General Hospital since April 15, did not wake up after being shot, he said.
The neighbor -- Allante Floyd, 25, of 218 E. Liberty St., Apt. 2 -- was arrested April 16 and charged with recklessly endangering another person, discharging a firearm into an occupied structure, simple assault and possession of a small amount of marijuana.
Police did not immediately respond to a question about new charges in the wake of her death.
"We are reviewing everything for appropriate charges, in consideration of all the evidence and the victim's passing," said Lancaster County district attorney's office spokesman Brett Hambright in an email Tuesday morning.
A hospital spokeswoman did not immediately return a message Monday evening.
Arroyo said he was in bed beside his wife when the incident occurred.
"It was around 11," he said. "She was tired, she went to sleep. I was still up. I was on my phone, watching a basketball game, with my headphones on ... but the lights were off. She was sleeping.
"I heard a loud sound. I thought it was like a firecracker," he said. "I asked her, 'Did you hear that?' She didn't respond. So I turned on the light and I saw her. ... I didn't know it was a gunshot then. I just saw the blood."
Arroyo said he screamed, "What's going on?"
"I was scared. Crying. I was freaking out," he said. "I grabbed my phone to call 911, my hands were shaking I couldn't even dial."
He was on the phone with a 911 operator when he looked at the wall and saw the bullet hole.
That was when her son -- Zion, a McCaskey High School senior -- came into the room and saw his mother, Arroyo said. Fortunately, he said, her 9-year-old daughter Janellie slept through the commotion.
"And about the time, our next-door neighbor -- the one who shot the gun -- he climbed from his window to my window. He lifted my window up and was like, 'Is she OK? What happened? I'm so sorry, so sorry, it was an accident!' " Arroyo said.
Arroyo said his wife never woke up in the hospital.
"I didn't want her to suffer," he said. "Me and my son, we spent day and night with her. We didn't sleep, we didn't eat."
He said he has been overwhelmed with support from the community, including family who flew in from Puerto Rico and complete strangers from Lancaster who reached out to the stricken family.
"You'd never expect something like this to happen," he said. "My wife, she was an angel. Anybody who knows her, they know there's no better human being."
Arroyo said he hopes to make peace with Floyd, who police said accidentally fired the fatal shot as he was cleaning his gun. Police described the gun as an "AK-47-style pistol."
"The guy that did this, I don't have a beef with him. I forgive him," Arroyo said. "I hope one day to talk to him and tell him I forgive him. His mistake took my wife's life, my kids' mom. I should hate him, want revenge. But I don't. I understand it wasn't malicious. He did something stupid.
"I saw it in his eyes that night -- he made a fatal mistake, and it cost my wife's life. But I can't live my life hating him. I can't live with that anger."
Arroyo's brother, Radames, started a GoFundMe account to help with the family's medical expenses.