'I just want to hold my baby': Mom fatally shoots teen daughter while rummaging in purse for keys

DeAnn Radley speaks about the death of her 13-year-old daughter, Dearria, who was killed when a gun went off in Radley’s purse as she was looking for her keys. (Main image: WKRN. Inset: Facebook.)

A Tennessee mother is mourning the death of her daughter — who died when a gun in the woman’s purse fired as she searched for her keys.

Police in Nashville say that DeAnn Radley reported the fatal shooting of her daughter, 13-year-old Dearria Radley, as an accident.

“Midtown Hills Precinct officers responded to the 9:58 p.m. 911 call and rendered immediate aid to Dearria prior to her being transported by ambulance to Vanderbilt’s Pediatric Emergency Room where she died of a single gunshot,” the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said in a press release Monday. “In an interview at police headquarters, Dearria’s mother told detectives that her unholstered .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol was in her purse with other items. She said it went off as she was attempting to retrieve her keys from the purse.”

Radley told local NBC affiliate WSMV that she is living a nightmare.

“My world is just falling apart,” she said. “I loved that little girl so much.”

She recalled that she was rummaging for her keys when a pistol in her bag went off.

“I didn’t know my gun was loaded in my purse and shot through my bag,” she told the station. “Then I saw the blood.”

She remembers her daughter as a girl who loved spending time with her family — and singing.

“I want her to be remembered by that angel voice and those beautiful eyes,” Radley said. “This is something I’m not ready for. Please, my baby … I just want to hold my baby.”

Dearria’s grandmother, Irish Radley, told local ABC affiliate WKRN that she is struggling to accept her new reality.

“I’m just hoping she comes through the door and all of this is just a dream or she will call me, ‘Granny, what you doing?’” she said. “I’ll never get those phone calls again. I’ll never get those texts, ‘Granny, can I come down there?’ It’s the small things I’m going to miss.”

Radley told the station that she feels like her world is falling apart.

“I feel empty inside, empty,” the girl’s mother said. “Like I tell everybody, you don’t know pain until you lose a child and that pain is a whole different type of pain and that pain will never go away.”

Radley has launched a GoFundMe to raise money for her daughter’s funeral costs.

Police say that no charges have been filed, but an investigation by the police department’s Youth Services Division is continuing.

Tennessee law does not require a permit to carry a firearm, whether openly or concealed.

More from Law&Crime: 9-year-old gets ahold of a gun, accidentally shoots, kills 6-year-old: Cops

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