This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A Cedar City man has been sentenced to prison for shooting a gun at his sister and her three daughters at their home in 2015.
Brett Steven Hunter, 37, had pleaded guilty in September to first-degree felony attempted murder.
Hunter also pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated assault and two counts of felony discharge of a firearm, all third-degree felonies. As part of a plea agreement, two other counts of attempted murder, one count of aggravated assault, three counts of felony discharge of a firearm and one count of misdemeanor possession or use of a controlled substance were dropped.
On Tuesday, 5th District Judge Keith Barnes sentenced Hunter to a four-years-to-life prison term on the attempted murder count and up to five years in prison on each of the other five counts.
On Aug. 11, 2015, police officers responded to a report that there were shots being fired in a home where Hunter lived with his father, his sister and her three daughters. When officers arrived, they heard "yelling and screaming coming from the residence," charging documents state, and began to yell for Hunter to come outside. Hunter followed orders and was arrested without incident.
Inside the home, officers found his sister, "emotional and hysterical," charges state. Her daughters were hiding and crying in the bathroom.
Hunter told police he had wanted his sister and her daughters out of the house by about 11 a.m. because their presence in the house was disrupting his plans to look at pornography and work out, charges state. He had smoked marijuana earlier that morning, he told police, and he "knew that [his sister and nieces] were in the back bedroom all together," so he "grabbed his gun and began kicking the door trying to get it open."
When the door didn't open, he fired "a shot or two in the door trying to get it open," charges state.
His sister told police Hunter was angry with her, and she had heard him talking to his dad — who was not present — asking his dad not to kill him, which made her "concerned."
The sister and her daughters ran to the bathroom, she told police, and "bullets were flying by the front of the girls."
The sister told police that Hunter "pointed his pistol at [her] head," and she grabbed it and it went off, charges state. The bullet "skimmed her arm and went four inches above her daughter's head, who was standing behind her."
Hunter told officers he forced his way past his sister and into the bathroom. Two of the girls were hiding inside a closet, documents state, and Hunter couldn't get the sliding mirror doors open. He shot through the door even though "he knew [the girls] were behind the door" because he "wanted to intimidate them so they would want to leave the house," charges state.
When officers went into the house, they found Hunter's sister with a black mark on her arm and a "red cut on the back of her arm," where she said she had been grazed by a bullet, charges state.
In the bathroom, one of the girls was in the fetal position on top of the toilet crying, and the other two were in a closet "trying to hide but could be seen," charges state.
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