Mother gets prison in death of 2-year-old in Lansing

LANSING, Mich. ( WLNS /WOOD) — A woman whose toddler died after getting his hands on a gun outside a Lansing gas station will serve time in a federal prison.

Emma Huver , 26, of Lansing, was sentenced to 5 years for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

“Today’s sentencing brings us closer to securing a measure of justice for this senseless loss
of life. The tragic death of this two-year-old boy, due to the accidental discharge of a gun that wasn’t properly stored, could have been prevented,” U.S. Attorney Mark Totten said in a Monday statement.

Authorities say Huver’s 2-year-old son King Muhammad got hold of a gun and shot himself in the head as he sat in an SUV with his mother at a Lansing gas station in October 2023 . King died later at the hospital .

Huver pleaded guilty in April to charges related to her son’s death. Under the terms of a plea agreement, she was required to admit “she had a purple 9-millimeter Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol in her car on October 24, 2023,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a release.

“We must keep guns out of the hands of those who cannot legally possess them and do everything we can in our fight against the gun violence epidemic that is now the number one cause of death for our youngest, ages 0-19,” Totten said.

Also charged in connection to King’s death were Avis Coward, 44, and Gina Schieberl, 27.

Federal prosecutors say the gun King grabbed was among two in the SUV and that both belonged to Coward. They say that Coward had left King and his mother in the SUV to go into the gas station when the gun went off. A bystander rushed the boy into the gas station to get help. Meanwhile, prosecutors say, Coward put the gun back in the car, broke out the window with the bullet hole and then drove away. Police tracked him down later that day and arrested him. Authorities say that while in jail, he called friends and asked them to come get the guns because he didn’t want the police to find them.

Police ultimately did find the guns . They found the SUV in a field about a week after the shooting, but it had been set on fire and was badly damaged.

Schieberl pleaded guilty to conspiring to tamper with evidence, admitting to hiding the guns and to moving the SUV. Coward pleaded guilty in June to being a felon in possession of a firearm.

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