Funeral held for 4-year-old N. Philly girl

A 4-year-old girl who shot herself with a gun she found in her North Philadelphia home was remembered Saturday in a funeral and buried in Bucks County.

Philadelphia police released more details about the death of the child, Sani Holmes, who found a loaded, .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun in a closet in the second-floor front bedroom of her home on North 20th Street, near Berks, about noon June 23.

Services for the child were held Saturday morning at United Missionary Baptist Church, 2500 W. Thompson St. She was buried at White Chapel Memorial Park, 140 W. Street Road in Feasterville.

In a statement, police described how the accident happened. While "seated in the closet, the victim was able to fire the handgun, while looking down the barrel," police said.

Law enforcement sources have said that the doorless closet had a cubbyhole in which a child could sit or climb on.

Officers who responded to a 911 call of the shooting found the girl lying outside on the front steps of her home, suffering from a gunshot wound to her right eye, police said.

Medics rushed her to Hahnemann University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at about 1 p.m.

In the home at the time were the girl's mother, Shakeya Holmes, 25, and her 3-year-old sister.

Holmes "originally provided false and misleading information to investigators," police said. She did reveal, however, that her boyfriend, Demetrius Williams, 26, was responsible for bringing the gun into her home, police said.

Williams, who stayed at Holmes' house but lists his residence as being on the 2000 block of North Seventh Street, in North Philadelphia, surrendered to police Thursday night after an arrest warrant had been issued. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter, endangering the welfare of a child, and weapons offenses.

A former convict, Williams illegally possessed the gun, police said.

In January 2014, he pleaded guilty to Philadelphia charges of carrying a firearm in public and without a license in September 2013.

He was sentenced in March 2014 to 10 to 23 months in county jail and four years' probation, with credit for time served.

This past December, he was sentenced to three to 23 months in jail, followed by three years' probation, for violating the terms of his probation on those charges. In February, a Philadelphia Common Pleas judge granted a motion for his parole.

Holmes was charged June 24 with third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, endangering the welfare of a child, concealing evidence, recklessly endangering another person, and possession of an instrument of crime.

Sources have said the mother was charged with third-degree murder because she didn't immediately call for help after her daughter shot herself and because she had a gun in her house in an unsafe place that was accessible to children.

One source also said that the mother initially said that her daughter was hit by an outside bullet that flew into an open second-floor window of the bedroom, but the source said that didn't make sense according to the evidence, including the bullet's trajectory.

Holmes is scheduled for a July 13 preliminary hearing, while Williams' hearing has been scheduled for July 20.

shawj@phillynews.com

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@julieshawphilly