In a tragic holiday story from the police blotter, an Oklahoma man has been arrested and charged after he allegedly accidentally shot and killed a woman blocks away while engaging in target practice.
The fatal shooting went down on Thursday in Comanche, which is about 90 miles southwest of Oklahoma City. An elderly victim who was sitting on a front porch was struck by the errant shot in her left arm while she was holding a baby and sitting on a loveseat, with the bullet hitting her in the upper right arm and then entering her chest cavity, according to an affidavit.
The woman, who CNN reports has been identified as Sandra Phelps, said “‘ouch’ and collapsed” in front of horrified family members who had gathered to celebrate Christmas. She was pronounced dead on the scene when first responders were dispatched to the residence on County Road 1800 at around 3:15 p.m.
An Oklahoma man who was doing target practice in his backyard on Christmas is believed to have shot and killed an elderly woman a few blocks from his home, authorities said. https://t.co/7f3MnwLk5K
— ABC News (@ABC) December 27, 2025
Family members told a sheriff’s deputy that they heard multiple shots “over several minutes” from north of the home, with the victim having “commented that someone got a new gun for Christmas” right before she was fatally struck.
Law enforcement then began canvassing residences to the north of the shooting and found that all but one had “suitable shooting backstops or firing locations,” according to the affidavit.
Deputies arrested 33-year-old Cody Wayne Adams, who got a Glock 45 as a Christmas present, with neighbors saying that they heard him shooting off “about 20 rounds,” the affidavit states.
“Adams allegedly told deputies who responded to his home that he had been shooting a Glock 45 that he recently bought for himself for Christmas at a Red Bull can in his backyard, according to the affidavit,” ABC News reported.
Adams has been charged with first-degree manslaughter in connection with the shooting, a terrible accident.
“On 12/25/2025 at approximately 1516 hours Deputies, Survival Flight EMS and Meridian Fire Department were dispatched to an address on County Road 1800 in the Meridian Area for an individual that had a gunshot wound,” the Stephens County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement posted to Facebook. “The first Deputy arrived on scene and asked for assistance from Duncan Police Department and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.”
“Later Investigators arrived on scene and requested the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to assist us in Crime Scene collection and canvasing the area. We later received a call stating an individual had just received a gun for Christmas and was target practicing in his backyard and that they believed it would be pointing in the direction of the scene,” the statement read.
“Investigators went to the reported address and spoke with an individual that confirmed he was shooting a target in his backyard and that he had heard that someone has died from a gunshot wound a couple of roads over. At approximately 1925 hours an arrest was made for first degree manslaughter,” according to the SCSO.
The affidavit states that when a deputy told Adams that he suspected that his target practice could have killed the elderly woman, he “became visibly upset and began to cry.” The deputy told the alleged shooter that “while he was shooting towards the ground in his backyard that there was nothing behind his property to stop any bullets from traveling beyond his property and hurting someone.”
Adams’ home is located approximately a third of a mile from the residence where Phelps was killed by a stray bullet.
According to ABC News, the charging document for Adams states that “by engaging in conduct with a firearm that created a situation of unreasonable risk and probability of death, or great bodily harm, to another person and demonstrated a conscious disregard for the safety of others.”
The alleged shooter’s bond was set at $100,000 during his appearance in court on Friday. Adams is set for a preliminary hearing on February 26, 2026.
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