Sheriff: Lipan teen charged in shooting

A 60-year-old Lipan man is in stable condition in a Fort Worth hospital after being wounded late Monday night as a result of two gunshots fired by the 14-year-old son of his adopted daughter, according to Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds. The son has been in Granbury’s Juvenile Justice Center since his arrest and was booked Monday morning on a first-degree felony charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, Deeds told the Hood County News.

The wounded man, Mark Stephen Pendergrass, suffered injuries to his face and left shoulder when “multiple shots” were fired from a .38 caliber revolver at “point blank range,” the sheriff stated.

Because he is a juvenile, the name of the suspect is not being released. According to Deeds, Pendergrass had been raising the boy in his home “for several years.”

The HCSO news release noted that Texas EMS and Lipan VFD First Responders responded to a Lipan residence “after an adult resident called 911 reporting possible shots fired inside the residence, however later indicated they believed a medical device had exploded. Upon EMS and first responders arriving on scene to treat an injured resident, they observed signs in the residence to be inconsistent with an explosion, but injuries to the resident to be consistent with an assault.”

The investigation of the case is ongoing, involving the Sheriff’s Office as well as a Texas Ranger, Deeds noted.

Deeds told the HCN that deputies had been searching for the suspect, but the boy “showed up on his own” at the residence at about 5 a.m. Tuesday.

“Recently there have been some problems that have come up. It’s a shame the whole thing happened,” Deeds said of the family’s situation, noting that the boy’s mother does not reside in Hood County. “He (Pendergrass) was doing the best he could to raise this boy. It’s great that it wasn’t fatal.”

The sheriff added, “It’s sad that this happened in such a small town of Lipan, where everybody knows everybody. It’s greatly affecting the whole town.”

Deeds noted that the suspect had been cooperative with investigators.

“He gave a lot of good information — but that’s all part of the investigation. It was a sad event.”