JACKSON COUNTY, Fla. (WDHN) — The Rocky Creek Field Trial, a horseback riding competition event where riders can train their bird dogs, is usually held in a quiet remote area but it quickly turned violent this past weekend after a woman was shot in the leg.
“We would have never thought something like this would happen at a field trial,” Hannah Todd said. “My initial reaction was I was confused, I didn’t even know what was going on for a second.”
Todd, who was a rider in the event, says Earnest Jett Jr. whom club members say had visited the day before to complain about riders came back the next day and allegedly fired shots into a group of 10 people and their trailers — one of the bullets hitting and going through the calf of Dr. Susan Wells, a veterinarian in the Mobile area.
Wells was able to make it to Todd’s trailer to let someone know she had been shot.
“I looked at my husband and told him Susan had just been shot and took off my belt to stop her bleeding,” Wells said.
Todd said she looks at this shooting as a failed attempt at a mass shooting. Over 30 people were out in the field along with the bullet holes in five other trailers.
Her trailer was damaged and she said it was a close call considering her kids were just inches away from the damage as they were inside the trailer asleep, and the bullets hit a bag of mini propane tanks which could have been disastrous.
“It is truly by God’s hands we are okay today,” Todd said.
After Jett Jr. left the area on foot trying to cross state lines, he was arrested in short time later and is facing an open count of second-degree murder and other felony charges.
“I don’t think this is a reflection on Dothan or the surrounding communities but I think this was a man of evil and hope he suffers great consequences and a lot of justice in this,” Todd added.
