Delaware Hunter Charged with Manslaughter After Mistaking Woman for Deer
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Center 0%
Right 100%
0 left · 0 center · 2 right
What happened
On Friday evening at about 7:40 p.m., Walter Moorhead, 74, of Salisbury, Maryland, fatally shot Santos Maria Chilel Soto, 39, of Georgetown, Delaware, in an open field in Ellendale, Delaware. Delaware State Police said Soto was walking with a man and two children when Moorhead, hunting deer from a camouflaged ground blind, fired his rifle after believing he had seen a deer. Troopers gave Soto medical care at the scene before she was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Moorhead was charged with manslaughter, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and three counts of first-degree reckless endangerment, and was released on $43,000 cash bond. Soto’s family launched a fundraiser for funeral costs and to transport her body to Guatemala for burial.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 4 articles
4 of 4 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 4 of 4
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Delaware State Police, evangelical church in Georgetown and Delaware state police
- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 1 of 4
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: press release
- Credits another outlet 0 of 4
- The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
- Unnamed sources 0 of 4
- The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 21, 12:47 UTC by CBS News, naming its source. First document 13 hours later, from Fox News (press release).
- Not counted 0
- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Right-leaning coverage identifies the dead woman as a mother of five whose family wants her body sent to Guatemala. Left-leaning coverage never mentions her children, the fundraiser, or a burial abroad. The extra portrait in Fox News comes from a family funeral fundraiser. The NBC News account names her as a Georgetown resident and stays with the police account. Those facts do not change how police say the rifle was fired or which charges were filed.
Scale for this kind of death shows up in only one left-leaning outlet. The Guardian called fatal hunting shootings "relatively rare." Right-leaning coverage gives no frequency at all for these deaths.
The coverage never asks whether hunting was allowed in that open field at 7:40 p.m.
Bottom line
Fox News tells you Soto was a mother of five whose family wants her buried in Guatemala; NBC News never mentions either fact.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Soto was a mother of five whose family sought money to send her body to Guatemala for burial
- Manslaughter and the firearm charge are class B felonies that can carry up to 25 years in prison
- Moorhead faces three counts of first-degree reckless endangerment
- IHEA recorded an average of 16.8 fatal hunting firearm-discharge incidents a year from 2010 to 2025
- Failure to properly identify a target was among the most common factors in those hunting incidents
The Left View
NBC News and The Guardian frame the case as a criminal charging story centered on alleged recklessness rather than a mere accident. The Guardian notes that Delaware defines manslaughter as “recklessness causing the death of another person,” and that the manslaughter and firearm-possession counts are class B felonies that “can carry up to 25 years in prison.” It also cites International Hunter Education Association figures of 252 fatal hunting firearm-discharge incidents from 2010 to 2025 (an average of 16.8 a year), with “failure to properly identify a target” among the most common factors.
The Right View
Breitbart and Fox News frame the shooting as a family tragedy, identifying Soto as a “mother of five” and a “beloved” aunt and quoting a GoFundMe that said her life was “tragically taken by a firearm.” Both outlets stress relatives’ grief and the cost of funeral services and sending her body to Guatemala. Fox News’s headline calls it an “alleged mistake,” keeping Moorhead’s account unproven while emphasizing the human toll over hunting-incident statistics or maximum prison terms.
Our Take (balanced)
Left-leaning coverage’s strongest argument is legal and statistical: police charged manslaughter as recklessness causing death, The Guardian reports those felonies can carry up to 25 years, and hunting-education data list failure to identify a target among the leading factors in fatal hunting shootings. Right-leaning coverage’s strongest argument is that the case is still an unadjudicated tragedy—an “alleged mistake,” in Fox News’s phrasing—whose clearest documented harm is to Soto’s family, described as a mother of five whose relatives are fundraising for burial in Guatemala. The central unresolved tension is whether the shooting should be read primarily as criminal recklessness or as a still-unproven hunting misidentification.
5 sources
- Hunter charged with fatally shooting a woman he thought was a deer, police say
- US hunter charged after fatally shooting woman he mistook for a deer, police say
- Maryland Hunter Shoots Mother of Five He Mistook for a Deer
- Maryland hunter's alleged mistake leaves Delaware mother dead
- Hunter fatally shoots woman he mistook for a deer, police say
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