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‘She always smiled’: Mother clings to hope after daughter shot, put on life support

CHARLOTTE — A mother holds on to hope while her 16-year-old daughter is in the hospital on life support after she was shot.

“She loved to hang out,” said Jessica Witherspoon, the mother. “Everything she does, she always smiled.”

Brittany Witherspoon is a bundle of joy, her mother told Channel 9 Reporter Glenn Counts.

Jessica Witherspoon said that on Aug. 19, she got a call that turned her life upside down. Her daughter had been shot. The police report said the shooting was accidental, but the family doesn’t buy that.

“I’m not going for that,” Witherspoon said. “She didn’t do that to herself.”

The incident happened at an apartment complex off Arrowood Road in southwest Charlotte. The bullet shattered Brittany Witherspoon’s neck and paralyzed her. Jessica Witherspoon said her daughter had two strokes this week and now she is brain dead while still on life support.

“(I will) never see her graduate,” Witherspoon said. “Never see her go to prom, grandkids, driving lessons -- just everything, all of that is taken away.”

She now faces the difficult decision of ending life support.

“Nobody wants to bury their child,” Witherspoon said. “Nobody wants to pull the plug. I don’t want to pull that plug. So I’m hanging on until I can’t hang no more.”

Witherspoon said she is not sure how the shooting happened, and she admits police have discussed the possibility of suicide. However, the mother said she doesn’t believe that. One reason she wanted to talk to Channel 9 was to urge people to exercise care around firearms.

“Put them guns down,” Witherspoon said. “It’s not a safe thing to do. You can do a lot of damage. There was one bullet. One bullet did all that damage to her.”

Witherspoon has a lot of pictures of her daughter, including one she took this week, holding her hand in the hospital.

“I did get a reaction today that gave me a little hope,” she said. “When I kissed her on her forehead, she smiled, and she hasn’t done that since she’s been in there.”

The family continues to hope for a miracle. In the meantime, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Homicide Unit is investigating.

Return to this story for updates.

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