A father has been sentenced to seven years in prison after his 12-year-old died of a gunshot wound in an accident at their home.
Christopher Wyatt, 33, of Lady Lake, was sentenced earlier this month in Lake County Court in the death of his son Jeramyah Wyatt, who was fatally wounded in 2020 at the family home on Singletary Road.
On the day of Jeramyah’s death, his parents heard a loud bang followed by the screaming of their 10-year-old daughter. Wyatt ran upstairs and discovered his son had been fatally shot in the head. The boy had been with his siblings in the master bedroom where a loaded Diamondback assault rifle had been stored under the bed. EMS personnel arrived on the scene and determined Jeramyah had died as a result of a gunshot wound.
There had been an incident 10 months earlier in which Jeramyah and the other children were home alone and thought they heard a noise. Jeramyah armed himself with his father’s shotgun and went to investigate the noise. Law enforcement and the Department of Children and Families were called to investigate and Wyatt and the children claimed that Jeramyah did not use the shotgun, but had retrieved a BB gun. The investigation was closed, but Wyatt was counseled on the proper storage of firearms. He signed a form acknowledging that the safe storage of firearms is required by Florida law.
While Wyatt was free on bond in the aggravated manslaughter case, he was arrested after allegedly attacking the 11-year-old son of his girlfriend.