Evansville grandmother killed in deer hunting accident
The fatal shooting of a woman Saturday, perhaps by someone in her party, is the first in Minnesota in two years.
In 25 years as a deer hunter, Shelley Denece Burgess took little for granted, friends said. On some hunts, she never fired a shot. And she almost always knew where others in her hunting party were.
But it may have been a member of Burgess' own hunting party, who did not know where Burgess was, that led to the 48-year-old grandmother's death Saturday morning, said Grant County Sheriff Dwight Walvatne.
Burgess became the first person in two years to die in a Minnesota hunting accident.
On the opening day of Minnesota's firearms deer season, Burgess, a bartender from Evansville, Minn., was in a field of high grass south of Ashby when she was struck in the left hip by a bullet that traveled an estimated 300 yards, Walvatne said.
"My mother's death was completely preventable," said Kari Burgess, who spent four years working for Citizens for a Safer Minnesota, an advocacy group dedicated to gun regulation and safer gun laws.
The suspected weapon, which belonged to a man in Burgess' hunting party, was being examined by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. No arrests were made as of Monday.
The shooting was being treated as an accident, Walvatne said.
"If that bullet came from down where this particular person was sitting, he couldn't see her," Walvatne said. "Not uphill. Not the way the hill crests. Not up through the grass."
Accidental hunting deaths in Minnesota are extremely rare. There were none last year, one in 2003 and two each in 2002 and 2001.
'Excited about hunting'
The mother of three grown daughters, Shelley Burgess was anything but trigger happy. Mother and daughter talked about gun safety often when they were together, Kari Burgess said, adding that her mother left nothing to chance when she went deer hunting.
"All the times we went hunting together, I don't remember a shot being fired between us," said Ken Kalenda, a friend.
"She was an experienced hunter, but she talked about always being careful," said Lynn Ellertson, manager at the Brandon Municipal Liquor Store, where Burgess tended bar. "She's one of those people who always thought about anything she did before she did it."
A sports fanatic who could hold her end of any conversation about the Vikings with the loudest customer at the end of the bar, Burgess was quick with a quip. But she grew serious when the conversation turned to deer hunting.
She was scheduled to close on a house with her boyfriend next month, and she told co-workers last week that she was excited to go hunting.
"She was always excited about hunting," said fellow bartender Laura Haugen. "Some mornings, you could tell she was stressed from all the work that goes along with getting a house. So she was really happy and excited to be able to hunt and get away from everything."
Dressed in orange, Burgess, her boyfriend and others in her hunting party settled in a "rifle zone," a vast area in which dozens of hunters wait anxiously, often unaware of other hunters close by, Walvatne said.
"You've got to know your target and what's beyond it," the sheriff said. "Safety, safety, safety. You can't repeat it enough."
Fatal hunting accidents in Minnesota have dwindled in recent decades, in part, because the state requires hunters born after 1979 to take firearms safety courses before they can buy firearms, said Mike Hammer, education coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' division of enforcement.
"When in doubt, don't shoot," Hammer said. "Know where all members of your hunting party are at at all times. Don't load and unload around members of your hunting party. The safety of other members of your hunting party is more important than that deer."
A daughter's memories
For Kari Burgess, whose father died of a heart attack four years ago, the shock of losing another parent echoed.
"She was in good health," said Kari, a research assistant in child safety at Johns Hopkins University. "She was the happiest person I knew. She was simple. She didn't need a lot. She was a bartender and loved it. Everything was great.
"She loved to go deer hunting ... only deer hunting. And we'd talk a lot about gun safety, probably because she'd have to defend my line of work with Citizens for a Safer Minnesota."
Shelley Burgess is survived by daughters Kari, 28, Angie, 27, and Melissa, 24, and a 1-year-old granddaughter, Eden. Funeral services will be held Friday at the Bethlehem-West Elbow Lake Lutheran Church in Burgess' hometown of Elbow Lake.
I'll be back there In the morning again If not some where else Until I get my Deer... any Hot spot would you guys recomend?
