Matilda Kaye Crabtree was a generation too late to play that kind of prank on her parents.
It used to be, people around these parts weren't so nervous about crime, and there weren't as many handguns. Doors could stay unlocked at night, and keys might get left in car ignition switches.Not anymore.
"More than crime itself, it's the fear of crime," Police Maj. Pat Kelly said. The town of 15,000 people had eight burglaries in the past month.
"We installed our first security system at this church just two years ago," said Paul Burke, a pastor at the First Assembly of God Church. "Someone broke in and stole the sound equipment. I live across the street from the church, and I definitely am not comfortable when people I don't know come to the door at night."
Matilda and a friend hid in a closet early Sunday as her parents returned home, bumping the walls and making noise as a joke.
Her father, Robert Crabtree, grabbed his .357-caliber pistol.
"He was nervous, scared, believing a burglar was in there," said Maj. Michael Worley of the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's office.
Matilda jumped out and shouted "Boo." Crabtree pulled the trigger.
The 14-year-old girl was buried Tuesday.
It's not the first such tragedy of fright combining with mistaken identity in the region.
In 1992, Baton Rouge resident Rodney Peairs shot and killed a Japanese exchange student who had gone to the wrong door looking for a Halloween party. Peairs was acquitted of manslaughter. In a civil trial this year, the company that insured his house was ordered to pay $653,000 in damages to the victim's parents.
Worley recounted another incident, several years back, in which a boy was almost shot by his father.
"The kid had gone outside to smoke, locked himself out accidentally and tried to get in a window," he said.
That time, the father recognized his child just a split second before squeezing the trigger of a shotgun.