Manslaughter dropped in NC school-yard shooting

ASHEBORO — A 16-year-old North Carolina girl has been cleared of manslaughter in her boyfriend’s death in a case that suggests the plot of “West Side Story.”

The News & Record of Greensboro reported Wednesday that a Randolph County judge dismissed the involuntary manslaughter charge facing Meredith Kandies.

She was the prize for which two boys traded punches outside an elementary school on Dec. 12.

Sixteen-year-old Jeremy McMillan had proposed to Kandies, and he brought a gun to the school-yard fist fight with the other boy. McMillan asked Kandies to hold the pistol.

When McMillan lost the fight, he tried to grab the gun away from Kandies. It discharged into McMillan’s stomach, killing him.

Kandies still faces gun possession charges.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)