Plea deal caps jail at 5 months for man whose 3-year-old found gun, fatally shot self in Hinckley home

Paul Walsh, Star Tribune
·2 min read
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Prosecutors in east-central Minnesota say they intend to cap at five months the jail sentence for a man who sent his 3-year-old son upstairs alone to a bedroom where the boy found a loaded gun and fatally shot himself.

Roy D. Pauza-Moore, 27, agreed last week to plead guilty in Pine County District Court to felony child endangerment, in connection with Aug. 8, 2023, death of Thomas Pauza-Moore. The boy died three weeks shy of his 4th birthday.

Also as part of the plea deal, the prosecution agreed to dismiss two manslaughter counts and a charge of negligent storage of a firearm.

Pauza-Moore remains free on bond ahead of sentencing, which is scheduled for June 17 before Judge Krista Martin.

According to the criminal complaint, Pauza-Moore called 911 at 9:07 p.m. last August 8 to report the shooting while his roommate, Joseph Gebhart, tended to Thomas on the father's bed. The boy was pronounced dead at the scene 19 minutes later.

Law enforcement officers saw an empty holster and a cellphone between the bed and one wall, and a semiautomatic pistol atop an unlocked gun safe.

Pauza-Moore told the Sheriff's Office he was on the main level playing video games while his son was watching a show on a cellphone. He said he sent Thomas upstairs alone so he could recharge the cellphone and keep watching the show.

The gunshot sent Pauza-Moore and his roommate to the bedroom, where they saw the boy bleeding on the floor.

Pauza-Moore said "the gun had been in a holster on the top part of the safe," the charges read. He said the weapon had no safety mechanism.

Along with the handgun, law enforcement located in Pauza-Moore's open bedroom closet an unloaded AR-15 style rifle and a loaded pump-action shotgun.

"The firearms were at floor level and accessible to the child," the charges noted. "Law enforcement further located three handguns and two rifles in [the roommate's] room."

The boy's mother, Kristin Pauza-Moore, told law enforcement that she had moved out of the home on June 26.

She said her husband often kept the handgun on a desk in the living room. She recalled telling him to keep the guns locked up, but he never used the gun safe while she was living there.