Grandma gunned down in driveway; neighbors say ‘they emptied the clip’

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WPTA) - A 61-year-old grandmother shot in a Fort Wayne driveway died at the hospital, and detectives are investigating whether she was the intended target.

“It just kept going and it seemed like it was louder and louder. And I said oh, that’s not firecrackers, that’s an AK or something like that. They emptied the clip, it sounded like they emptied the clip because it went on like it wasn’t going to stop,” neighbor Charles Stewart said.

Stewart says the sharp noises jolted him as he watched tv just before eleven Tuesday night in his home just south of Paulding Road on the city’s southeast side.

“About five seconds after that then we heard another six shots but it was from a handgun. And so we said somebody’s shooting back,” he said.

61-year-old Arlene Shelton had been sitting in a car in the 1400 block of Ventura Lane when someone opened fire, police said, but officers found her lying in the driveway.

Stewart says he and other neighbors watched paramedics wheel her to the ambulance and race away, and was encouraged because Shelton wasn’t covered with a sheet.

“I was hoping that she would make it but after shots like that, if they was that close on her with an AK-47, I just said to myself I don’t think she was going to make it,” he said.

Stewart says it’s not the first time he’s heard shots from that part of the street, but says it’s the first time someone has died.

An autopsy Wednesday confirmed Arlene Shelton died after being shot several times, and the coroner ruled her death a homicide.

Neighbor Htet Maung came home from work at about two in the morning to find both sides of the street blocked by police cars.

He says he asked an officer if he could pull under the crime scene tape to get into his driveway.

“I want to go in my house so I asked the officer, I just come back from work and I want to go in my house. The officer said okay and he asked me to go in the house. So they’re blocking both sides of, they block so no one can go in and out,” he said.

Neighbor Stewart says based on what he knows about guns and what he heard, the shooter intended to kill someone.

“Prayers go out to the family. I just hope they catch who did it,” he said.

Detectives are investigating whether the 61-year-old grandma was the intended target.

Her homicide is Allen County’s 30th of the year.