Visha Franklin, 41, is accused of shooting a helpful person in the face in North Carolina. (Crime scene screenshot from CBS 17/YouTube; mug Shot from Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office — North Carolina)
A woman who was in a crash in North Carolina shot and injured a good Samaritan who had offered to help, and witnesses said the suspect took off all her clothes and talked angrily about God, a gun and a knife, authorities said.
Visha Franklin, 41, was arrested in connection with the event that left an unidentified 40-year-old woman in the hospital with a gunshot wound to her face, Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office reported in a news release.
The shooting happened on Tuesday. The Sheriff’s Office got a 911 call at 5:16 p.m. for a car crash and a woman being shot in the 4800 block of Matt Hair Road in Fayetteville.
Authorities said the shooting occurred when the victim saw the car crash and slowed down to help, and Franklin shot at her car multiple times, hitting the woman, officials said.
A state Highway Patrol sergeant told The Fayetteville Observer that Franklin had crashed after she went through a front yard, crossed a road and hit two trees.
Franklin was taken into custody without bail at the Cumberland County Detention Center. She is facing charges of attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and four counts of discharging a weapon into occupied property, authorities said.
Witnesses told Raleigh, North Carolina’s NBC affiliate about the chaos WRAL-TV.
“She had taken off all her clothes and put them in a pile, and then looked at a firefighter and told him, ‘Take your glasses off and look me in the eyes. I’m God,'” the witness said to the station.
Another witness said Franklin said “all kinds of stuff, like ‘Lord Jesus, give her a gun. Give her a knife. She’s got a lot to do.’ Then she was shouting and screaming,” the witness said, according to the news outlet.
A witness told local CBS affiliate WNCN about the suspect’s actions after the shooting.
“She was waving the gun in the air with the slide back so you could tell it was empty,” the witness recounted, the outlet reported. “She was yelling, ‘Just run me over.'”
Franklin is set to appear in court on April 9, according to online court records.