Warrants: Suspect in 7-year-old shooting hid gun before driving boy to hospital
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Court documents reveal disturbing new details about the shooting of a 7-year-old boy in Wake County.
Joseph Meacham was shot in the head last Tuesday at a house in north Raleigh.
In newly-released search warrants, Wake County deputies accuse 21-year-old Brandon Ross of taking the gun that was used to shoot the 7-year-old and hiding it in his backyard before he drove the child to the hospital.
Ross faced a judge last week on charges of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury.
The incident happened around 6:30 p.m. at Ross' northeast Raleigh home on Ferriday Court.
Warrants stated deputies found blood and a spent shell casing in a bedroom that Ross and Meacham were in at the time of the shooting.
Investigators allege Ross then hid the gun in his backyard before he and his neighbor drove Meacham to WakeMed - not waiting for EMS or law enforcement to get to the house, even though someone had called 911.
Three other children were in the house at the time - a 10-year-old, a 4-year-old and a 7-month-old.
Wake County deputies said Ross was supervising them at the time and left them at the house alone while he took Meacham to the hospital.
The search warrant shows Ross and Meacham are related.
Ross' older brother, Christopher, told ABC11 Tuesday that the pair are cousins. He said Meacham, his mother, and three siblings - ages 17, 10, and 4 - were visiting from New York for Thanksgiving when the shooting happened.
The brother said Joseph and his family are all back in New York, and the boy is walking and talking after being shot in the temple, adding the surgeons at Duke Hospital called his recovery a "miracle."
Christopher said he wasn't at the house when the shooting happened, but said his 7-month-old son was there. He added that his brother would've never intentionally hurt his cousin.
