On June 2, 2014, 3-year-old Miranda Joann Doerr was found with a gunshot wound to the head in a bedroom of a mobile home at Bykota Mobile Home Park east of Joplin. She was taken to Freeman Hospital in Joplin and pronounced dead shortly after arrival. At the time, her 6-year-old brother was playing in the same bedroom and a loaded handgun was reportedly accessible in the room.

Their mother, Jennifer Doerr, was in another part of the residence when the gun discharged and the brother was later placed in state protective custody while investigators sought to determine what occurred. Newton County Coroner Mark Bridges ruled the death an accident, noting the autopsy showed Miranda did not shoot herself but could not definitively state who pulled the trigger; circumstances pointed to the sibling.

Did anyone in the area know the family or see evidence about how the children accessed the firearm?