Shooting still a mystery

Coulee Dam police are still trying to figure out what happened in the “exploding guitar” shooting incident that happened July 14, on River Drive, where a woman was shot in her arm.

The badly injured Nicole Stice went to the door of her home at 1017 River Drive, calling out, “Somebody help me.”

Stice had received a gunshot wound to her arm, but she told police that her guitar “had exploded” as she was playing it. Police found a .45-caliber gun nearby and a guitar with a bullet hole in it.

Police tried to interview Stice, but she was under sedation at Coulee Medical Center. An officer had attempted to question her last Tuesday, July 17, but she was unable to talk with police.

Later the same day, police said, Stice checked out of the hospital and went to Kellogg, Idaho, where she remains.

Sgt. Larry Hall spoke with Stice by phone this week and she told him she would return to the area either the end of this week or early next week and would speak to police then.

Police said the bullet entered the woman’s arm just below the elbow, went through the guitar and was embedded in the wall when they found it. It was from a .45 caliber gun, which was found nearby.

Police still haven’t been able to determine how the shooting occurred or if there was an unidentified person involved.