Minister pleads guilty to shooting granddaughter
ROCHESTER, Minn. (AP) — A Rochester minister who shot his granddaughter after mistaking her for an intruder has pleaded guilty to a felony charge.
Sixty-one-year-old Stanley Warren Wilkinson was charged with one count of intentional discharge of a firearm that endangers safety.
The Post-Bulletin of Rochester reports his sentencing was set Monday for April 15. The charge carries a maximum of five years in prison.
Wilkinson, a Seventh-Day Adventist pastor, told police he grabbed his pistol after hearing a noise outside his house Dec. 10 and fired two rounds after seeing what he thought was someone trying to open the deck door. It turned out to be his 16-year-old granddaughter, who was struck once in the neck.
She had been living with her grandparents and told police she left the house without telling them.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.