Mother of 8-year-old shooting victim files $10 million lawsuit

The mother of an 8-year-old White Pine, Tenn., girl killed last year by a shotgun blast to the chest filed a $10 million lawsuit Monday against the parents of the 11-year-old boy who pulled the trigger.

An attorney for Latasha Dyer filed the lawsuit in Jefferson County Circuit Court. The lawsuit seeks $5 million in medical and funeral expenses, the value of Makayla Dyer’s life, loss of companionship “and for pain and suffering and all other reasonable compensatory damages,” records show.

The legal action was filed by Dandridge attorney P. Richard Talley against Jason and Mary Ann Tiller, whose son Benjamin Tiller was ultimately found delinquent by reason of first-degree murder in the Oct. 2, killing. The boy has been ordered to remain in state custody until age 19.

Makayla’s mother also asks a jury to award her $5 million in punitive damages against Benjamin’s parents “for their willful, wanton, grossly negligent conduct allowing Benjamin Tiller, an 11-year old, access to a loaded firearm without supervision.”

Authorities said the boy fired the fatal blast at Makayla from a bedroom window of the family’s trailer in White Pine. The boy’s parents were watching a University of Tennessee football game on television at the time.

Authorities said the boy shot Makayla after he asked her to bring a puppy she had recently gotten to his trailer window so he could see it. Authorities never gave specifics about the conversation he had with the girls, but the boy got his father’s shotgun from a closet and aimed it out the window.

He fired once at MaKayla before tossing the shotgun and a pellet pistol from the window and then closed the window, the park manager said. Makayla died at the scene. The lawsuit states Latasha Dyer lives in Sevier County. Jason and Mary Ann Tiller live in Virginia, according to the lawsuit.

Latasha Dyer testified before a state Senate committee in March in support of Makayla’s Law, a bill named for her daughter that would have punished gun owners who leave their guns unlocked and available to children — with increased penalties if a child used such a gun to harm another.

A state House committee voted down the bill, which drew opposition from the National Rifle Association and other gunrights groups, but advocates have vowed to bring the measure back in future legislative sessions.