DENVER – A 7-year-old boy who died in a shooting that left 24 bullet holes in a home on a tribal reservation in Colorado was lying next to his father in bed when he was hit, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.
Zackieus Lang told investigators that his son was on the right side of the bed and he was sleeping on the left when he heard gunfire just after midnight on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, according to an arrest affidavit for Jeremiah Hight, who is charged in the shooting.
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The FBI, which investigates serious crimes on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation in the Four Corners region where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet, did not provide a motive. However, one person who was drinking with Hight and others in the hours before the shooting told an FBI agent that Hight had said he planned to “shoot up Zackieus Lang’s house", according to the arrest affidavit.
Hight was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon on a mesa west of Oljato, Utah, on the Navajo Nation reservation by members of the Navajo Police Department’s dog team and the Bureau of Indian Affairs drug enforcement division, Navajo police said. Authorities had been looking for Hight for several days before finding him in a remote area, Navajo police spokesperson Chrissy Largo said.
Investigators found 24 bullet casings from an “assault-style rifle” at the shooting site in Colorado. They were recovered near where a person was seen shooting on a surveillance video, according to the affidavit.
Lang said he saw his son, Zamias Lang, immediately “struggling in pain.”
Hight's arrest came about 24 hours after the FBI announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction in the fatal shooting at the home in Towaoc, Colorado, on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation. The town is about 110 miles (177 kilometers) east of where Hight was found.
Hight briefly appeared in federal court in Flagstaff, Arizona, Thursday. He did not contest that he was the person being sought in Zamias Lang's shooting, so he will be sent to Colorado to face charges of second-degree murder and assault with a dangerous weapon in Indian Country and using a firearm during a violent crime, according to court documents.
A message seeking comment was left Thursday for Hight’s lawyer, Luke Stephen Mulligan.