Police: William Kelly Jr. Shoots Daughter's Boyfriend in the Groin

(Feb. 19) -- A 48-year-old Florida man was arrested this week for allegedly shooting his daughter's boyfriend in the groin.

A Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office deputy was investigating a noise complaint on Lost Bottoms Lane in Navarre when he heard a "loud noise" that sounded like a "large-caliber gunshot." Shortly thereafter, the deputy heard screams coming from the same direction as the shot.

"I heard both a male and a female screaming for help," Deputy Brian Everett Willis wrote in the arrest report. "I then saw two subjects who I know to be Amanda Kelly and Randall Carter running towards me from the southeast. Randall was screaming that he had been shot. Randall was bleeding from his groin area. Randall had been shot in the scrotum and surrounding inner thigh areas."

When questioned by Everett, the couple told him that Amanda's father, William Kelly Jr., had shot Randall. When Everett asked the reason, Amanda, 18, replied, "Because he hates him, dude! That's it."

Minutes after the alleged shooting, Sgt. J. Erlemann arrived on the scene and located Kelly on a nearby property. Erlemann confronted the suspect and asked him what happened. He replied, "I shot him in the nuts with bird-shot because he was beating my daughter," the police report states.

Erlemann found a silver .45-caliber Taurus revolver, nicknamed "The Judge," in Kelly's possession. The gun had been fully loaded, but a single shot had been fired.

"The empty casing inside the last-fired chamber was bird-shot," Willis wrote in the police report. "The next three chambers were loaded with bird-shot. The final chamber was loaded with a lead slug."

Kelly, an employee of Eglin Air Force Base, was taken into police custody and booked into the Santa Rosa County Jail on one second-degree felony count of aggravated battery causing bodily harm or disability. He was later released on a $20,000 bond.

Carter, 29, was treated and released from a local hospital.

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