Eighteen-year-old Dakota Wrightsman of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, was killed by a single gunshot in the basement of his home on May 13, 2023, eight days before his planned high school graduation. He had been with a small group of friends that early Saturday morning when the shooting occurred; emergency responders pronounced him dead at the scene after his father, who was outside, heard the shot and saw his son come up from the lower level.

Court records describe a sequence in which two friends began to wrestle, and a handgun fell from a pocket. Cooper D. Ashley, 18, who was not wrestling, picked up the firearm and witnesses say it discharged, striking Wrightsman. Witnesses reported Ashley saying he thought the weapon was a pellet airsoft gun; another witness said Ashley had consumed a good quantity of alcohol. Ashley was arrested on a charge of first-degree involuntary manslaughter and posted bond.

The defendant is presumed innocent. Does anyone who knew Dakota or was at that gathering have details that could clarify exactly what happened that night?