Timing, thick dresser save couple's grandkids

Timing and an antique dresser may have saved a town of Watertown couple's grandson from a hunter's stray bullet Saturday morning in Oneida County.

"I was there, sleeping in the next room," said the boys' grandmother, Mary Knapp, 18348 County Route 65.

Mrs. Knapp, wife of Michael J. Knapp, a retiree of the state Department of Transportation, spent the weekend at the home of their son and daughter-in-law, Jeffrey J. and Rachel C. Knapp, to baby-sit their two children.

A hunter identified as Gene P. Whipple, 37, Waterville, fired four shots at about 7:15 a.m. at a deer in a wooded area off California Road, Deansboro, according to state police. One shot passed through a wall and into the bedroom of the couple's 9-month-old son, Joshua.

The bullet passed through the length of the mattress in Joshua's unoccupied crib, then lodged in the thick wood frame of a dresser, Mrs. Knapp said. Had it not been for the dresser, she said the bullet probably would have continued through a partition into the couple's older son's bedroom. Jake, 2, was sleeping in his bed on the other side of the wall, in direct line of fire, she said.

Mrs. Knapp said she also was sleeping in Jake's room, but not in the bullet's direction of travel.

"I was awakened by a loud noise," she said Monday. "Jeff asked if I had dropped something."

"I heard two noises," Jeffrey Knapp said Monday evening. "It sounded like things falling off the wall or something moving," he said.

Mrs. Knapp went downstairs, where she found her son holding the baby. "He had removed the baby from the crib five or 10 minutes before the shooting and had taken him downstairs to give him his bottle," she said.

Her son began looking around, found the damage to the crib, and then saw a hole in the wall, she said. They then called state police.

"The guy and his buddy were still outside, walking around looking for his deer when troopers arrived," Mrs. Knapp said. "The troopers ran right over to him, and he admitted firing four shots."

The shots were fired from 400 to 500 yards away, Jeffrey Knapp said.

Mr. Whipple was charged with second-degree reckless endangerment.

Jeffrey Knapp, a 1998 graduate of Watertown High School, and his wife of four years, the former Rachel C. Schmitt of Earlville, are both teachers in the New Hartford Central School District. He is a SUNY Brockport graduate, she of SUNY Cortland, and both have received masters degrees at SUNY Potsdam.

They have lived in their newly built home about 10 months.

"I grew up in the country, it's where I belong," Mr. Knapp said. "I'm a hunter myself, so I know how things can happen. People have just got to use more common sense."