CULPEPER, Va. – The mother of a Culpeper police officer indicted Tuesday in the fatal shooting of a woman has also been indicted.
Virginia State Police said Daniel Harmon-Wright, 32, of Gainesville, was charged with murder and other gun charges in the Feb. 9 shooting of 54-year-old Patricia Ann Cook.
Harmon-Wright’s mother, Bethany Sullivan, has been indicted on three counts of forgery and three counts of uttering of public documents.
Prosecutors say Sullivan was the administrative assistant to the Chief of the Culpeper Police Department. They say Sullivan went into her son’s personnel file and got rid of negative stuff about him.
Virginia State Police said Daniel Harmon-Wright, 32, of Gainesville, was charged with murder and other gun charges in the Feb. 9 shooting of 54-year-old Patricia Ann Cook.
A prosecutor appointed to investigate the shooting asked the special investigative grand jury to look into the case. Police say the shooting occurred after the officer responded to a report of a suspicious woman in a vehicle in a church parking lot.
Harmon-Wright was talking to Cook when she closed the driver’s side window suddenly while trying to get her identification.
State police said Cook drove off with the officer’s arm trapped in the window and refused his commands to stop. He then shot her and the vehicle crashed.
“Without commenting on the particulars of the investigation, over the course of the month of May, this special investigative grand jury heard from more than 45 witnesses, received more than 100 separate exhibits and were presented with reams of documentary evidence,” Fauquier County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Fisher said in a statement.
Virginia State Police investigated the shooting at the request of the Town of Culpeper police chief.
Fisher and a state police spokeswoman refused to comment further before an evening news conference.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
AP-NY-05-29-12 1912EDT
