Seeking closure
Family reflects after loss of teen 1 year ago
courtesy photo
ika Corrigan was just 16 years old when she was fatally shot .
courtesy photo
She loved fishing, so much so that she waited 45 minutes to catch the big one, top right, according to her brother.
courtesy photo
Cathleen, Aunika and Bryan Corrigan
courtesy photo
courtesy photo
courtesy photo
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
1 of 3 free articles.
The afternoon began with two teenagers meeting up with a man. One of the girls connected with him on a dating website, and the day ended with one girl dead.
Aunika Corrigan, 16, of Polson died one year ago on June 25, 2015. Charges of negligent homicide, a felony, were recently filed against Jonathan Ross Gray, 27. He is from Massachusetts but lived in Ronan at the time. Gray pleaded not guilty to those charges in Sanders County District Court. The trial is scheduled for October.
Aunika’s parents spent the last year trying to figure out exactly what happened. They said the afternoon started out like any other summer day. “Aunika and her friend, Shannon, were at the house at 3:30,” said Aunika’s mother, Cathleen Corrigan.
The teenagers asked if they could go fishing at Sloan’s Bridge. Aunika was on summer break from school, and she often went fishing.“There was no mention of anything else,” she said. “If I knew they were meeting a 27-year-old man, I wouldn’t have let them go.”
A few hours later, Aunika sent her mom a text saying she would be home around 9 p.m. Aunika’s father, Bryan Corrigan, was worried when that time came and went and she wasn’t home. He sent her a text. He continued to try and contact her, but an hour later, Polson Police Officer Devon McCrea knocked on the family’s door. She said there was an accident.
“They didn’t know what happened,” he said of the Polson Police Department that volunteered to tell the family. “They only knew that she was deceased, but they have been a great help answering questions and everything.”
Corrigan said it was another 30 minutes before they found out that an accidental shooting had occurred. The incident happened off of Little Bitterroot Road, which is across Sloan’s Bridge in Sanders County.
Aunika’s father went through police reports, listened to 911 calls, and examined a gun exactly like the one that killed his daughter, but a few details were left missing until recently when the couple received a call from Shannon, the friend that was there that day.
“She said they had gotten a text from Jonathan Gray while at our house,” Corrigan said. “Shannon met him on Tinder. He wanted her to go fishing. She said she was with (Aunika) and he said to bring her along.”
The group met at Sloan’s Bridge.
“They all got in his truck,” he said adding that Aunika was in the back and Shannon was in the front while Gray was driving. They were driving around hunting rattlesnakes when they saw a coyote in the field. Gray stopped and jumped in the bed of the truck to shoot at a coyote with a Marlin 30-30 rifle.
Shannon told Corrigan that she stayed in the truck and was looking at her cell phone with the window rolled down. He wanted to know where his daughter was standing. Aunika got out of the truck on the rear passengerside and stood by the mirror. Shannon said she heard a shot and glanced up and didn’t see Aunika standing there.
She looked down and saw her on the ground.
Corrigan needed to know how the gun went off. He studied the police reports that said Gray was loading the gun when it discharged. Gray called it a misfire.
“I have a visual in my mind,” he said as he held a cross that he wears around his neck. “I don’t believe he was aiming.”
Corrigan also doesn’t believe the gun misfired. He believes Gray unknowingly had his finger on the trigger as he pulled back on the lever after loading the gun. The rounded metal lever is next to the trigger, and once it clicked into place, the gun fired. The Montana Crime Lab tested the gun and found it to be mechanically functional.
The Sander’s County affidavit states that Gray said he had difficulty loading the gun when it discharged, but he was unable to provide clear details.
Gray was standing in the back of the truck when the gun went off and shot Aunika through the eye, according to the affidavit. Gray cried out and ran up to Aunika. He then told Shannon to call 911. At about 8:30 p.m., a 911 dispatcher received a call that Aunika had been shot, and she had died.
Gray talked to the dispatcher and gave them directions to the location, 10 miles from the bridge. He said that the gun misfired and he shot the 16-year-old girl. Shannon took the truck and went to flag down Hot Springs Police Chief Chad Radabah. Sander’s County Sheriff ’s Office Deputy Jared Hutchings also responded to the scene as did Deputy Robyn Largent. They interviewed Shannon and Gray. Chief Radabah collected the gun as evidence. The ambulance also arrived.
Gray stated that he had consumed maybe three alcoholic drinks that day. The affidavit states that photos of the scene show a cooler containing beer and ice in the bed of the truck. A toxicology report states that no drugs or alcohol were found in Aunika’s body.
Corrigan said he understands that the incident was an accident but he feels that Gray needs to be accountable for the events leading up to the accident. He hired an attorney and has perused the case for the past year.
“It’s negligent that he was shooting from a vehicle on a county road at an animal on the reservation,” he said. “He pointed the gun at an unsafe direction, and he was drinking and driving with minors in the truck.”
Aunika’s mother said her family needs to see consequences for those alleged choices.
“I don’t expect him to spend his entire life in jail,” she said. “But I need some accountability. He gets to go on with his life while we have to figure out how to live without her.”
The parents also feel that more should have been done during the investigation including collecting cell phones earlier to determine what happened before the incident.
Corrigan said the county handling the investigation should have let his family know exactly what happened, sooner. The family is also focusing on the memory of their daughter.
“She was my little social bug,” her mother said. “She found the best in every person.”
Corrigan remembers his daughter’s love for hunting, fishing and rodeo.
“She went from wearing camo and being out in the dirt to dressing up without missing a beat,” he said.
But she really loved fishing.
“Aunika stayed in one spot to catch that one fish for 45 minutes, and she got it,” said her brother, Austin Corrigan. She had five siblings.
The family said that the community has pulled together to support the family. “The church was filled with about 2,500 people,” Corrigan said of Aunika’s funeral service. “The church couldn’t let everyone in. People filled the parking lot. The support was awesome. The football team even put her initials on their helmets.”
The family imagines that she continues to ride her horse in spirit. “Ride on, Rosebud,” her father said.
