DEATH IS NO GAME
Shot girl in play fight dies, pals held
He just kept saying he didn’t mean to
TEENS playfighting with a loaded gun left one 15-year-old girl dead and two boys facing manslaughter charges, authorities and witnesses said Saturday.
Wilta Wordsworth, who stayed home from school on Friday, had invited a pair of boys, also 15-years-old, over to her Queens apartment to hang out.
She was play wrestling with one of the boys when he pulled a gun and blasted her in the head by accident, Nia Skrine, the doomed girl’s friend said Saturday.
“He was scared. He just kept saying he didn’t mean to. It was an accident,” said Nia, 15, who had slept over Wilta’s Far Rockaway apartment the night before and witnessed the tragedy.
Wilta’s mother Miatta Teage, 39, was inconsolable when reached by phone Saturday.
“She was very good, I don’t know what went wrong,” she said, sobbing uncontrollably.
“I am angry because people are walking around with guns. All kinds of people on the street have guns.”
The horror unfolded just after noon Friday inside Wilta’s seventh-floor apartment on Collier Ave., officials said.
Wilta, who also went by the nickname Taya, skipped school Friday to avoid a fight, Nia said. Wilta’s mother was at work, so the girl decided to invite two boys over, according to Nia.
“She let them in,” Nia said. “(Wilta and the shooter) were play fighting and he just pulled it out and he shot her.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Nia added. “I kept touching her and she wouldn’t wake up.”
Nia, still dressed only in her undergarments from the sleepover, ran out of the apartment and began pounding on neighbors’ doors for help.
“She came to ask to use my phone to call the police,” said building superintendent German Tejata.
Tejata raced up to the apartment and found Wilta unconscious in her bedroom.
“She was halfway in bed and on the floor,” he said.
The doomed teen died at St. John’s Hospital early Saturday, police said.
Surveillance footage showed one of the boys fleeing in the moments after the shooting, according to the super. The second boy whispered something in Nia’s ear before also dashing off, the super said.
Cops caught up with the boys and charged both of them with manslaughter, weapons possession and tampering with physical evidence. The two were charged as minors, officials said.
“We were all friends and it was an accident,” Nia said.
“I don’t want anything bad to happen to them but they’re gonna have to suffer the consequences.”
Wilta, who attended nearby Middle School 53, had just moved into the building in February, neighbors said.
“She didn’t deserve it,” Nia said. “That was my best friend. That was like my sister.”
Teage knew that her daughter had a sleepover and was skipping school on Friday.
Teage said she immigrated from Liberia to the U.S. in 1999 so that Wilta — and later Wilta’s 7-year-old brother Maxwell could be born as American citizens.
The proud mom hoped Wilta would have a better life than she did, she said.
“They took away my American dream,” she cried.