The family of an 84-year-old South County woman
struck and killed by a bullet as she sat on her back porch has settled a lawsuit with a neighbor over her death.
St. Louis County Circuit Judge Nellie Ribaudo on Friday approved a $100,000 settlement for the family of Betty Lou Knight, who died in June when a bullet hit her in the neck as she sat with her husband of 65 years on their back porch.
Raymond O. Bodicky’s insurance policy will pay the settlement to Knight’s 86-year-old husband, Dale Knight, and their three children. They
accused Bodicky, their neighbor, of “negligently and carelessly” killing Betty Knight by shooting a gun across private property, in violation of county ordinance and state law.
Police said Bodicky was their only suspect in the shooting but prosecutors never charged him with a crime, citing the need for more evidence.
During the investigation,
Bodicky acknowledged to police that he routinely shot squirrels in his backyard and fired at one near his bird feeder with a pellet rifle on the same afternoon Betty Knight was killed.
But he denied using any weapon except a pellet rifle, saying it was “too dangerous” and that the neighborhood was “not that type of area … where people shoot their neighbors.”
Bodicky did not attend Friday’s settlement hearing in St. Louis County Circuit Court. He could not be reached, and his lawyer declined to comment. Court records say Bodicky is a retired widower with no criminal history in Missouri. He is retired from a medical and surgical device maker in downtown St. Louis.
Dale Knight was sitting beside his wife when a round from a .22-caliber gun struck her neck about 3:50 p.m. June 26, police have said. The Knights’ home is in the 5000 block of Crosswood Drive, in the Sandalwood subdivision in south St. Louis County.
The backyards of Crosswood Drive touch those of the 5000 block of Lampglow Court, where Bodicky lives.
The round punctured a half-wall on the covered back porch, flew past Dale Knight and struck his wife as she used an iPad. Police said the gun that fired the fatal shot has never been found, and that tests comparing the bullet to ammunition in Bodicky’s home were inconclusive.
Neighbors told police that squirrels had become invasive pests in the neighborhood, attacking gardens, building nests and chewing on roofs. Bodicky told police they had ruined his tomato garden and a tree.
Police found inconsistencies in Bodicky’s statements about the angle from which he shot his pellet gun on the day Betty Knight was killed. When asked to explain, he told police “he did not want to get into trouble for shooting at the squirrels.” Bodicky also said “it would be magic if anything came back” to one of his guns,” and that, “Hopefully, it doesn’t come back on me.”
Johnson and her sister, Gay Turner, said after the settlement hearing that their father still wakes up at night looking for his wife. They said he is suffering from deepening dementia, depression and “cries at the drop of a hat.” They said he still finds comfort in watching his wife’s flowers bloom and birds in the backyard but that they still remind him of what happened.
The lawsuit would not have been necessary if Bodicky had acknowledged early on firing the gun and apologizing to her family, Johnson said.
“It would have been nice to hear, ‘I’m sorry,’” she said.