EUSTIS, Fla.—The father of the young boy who found a gun under a pillow and shot himself last month has turned himself in after a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Dexter Demond Neal, who has cooperated with the investigation, turned himself in early Sunday evening at the Lake County Jail on a warrant for child neglect and culpable negligence and is being held on no bond, Eustis Police Department Chief Craig Capri told Inside Lake. Inside Lake was the first to report Neal’s son shot himself in the head after finding an unsecured firearm June 29 at his home on Hunters Trail Circle.
Capri said Neal, 49, often slept with his autistic son, whose name has not been released, and on June 28 he went to bed with a firearm beneath a pillow, something he told police he had never done before. He got up the next morning to assist his wife and make his children breakfast, forgetting the gun was in the room. The boy and his sibling were eating while Neal turned his attention to assisting his wife. Soon, he heard the gunshot and immediately ran into the bedroom to his son and began to render aid.
A female 911 caller reported she heard a gunshot and said her 5-year-old brother was bleeding profusely, and a second caller, a neighbor who is a police officer in a neighboring county, stated a juvenile sustained a gunshot wound above his left eye and it appeared to be self-inflicted. He told dispatch his wife, an off-duty flight nurse, was rendering aid to the boy and he was getting his first-aid kit. Eustis Police Department quickly responded to the home around 9:15 a.m.
When police arrived, the boy was lying on the hood of a vehicle while the flight nurse was applying pressure to his wound and “QuikClot.” QuikClot is a brand of hemostatic dressings designed to rapidly control bleeding by accelerating the body’s natural clotting process, according to the company’s website.
Neal was with his son, emotionally distraught and he “remained focused on his son’s well-being,” an EPD report states. The boy was airlifted to Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando for treatment and has since been released. He’s recovering in an undisclosed physical therapy facility, Capri said. ”He’s doing better than expected and we ask the community to continue to pray for him.”
