'What did you do?': Friends passing around gun pretending to shoot one another shocked when firearm goes off and kills one of them, DA says

Three friends were sitting wrong a Pennsylvania chamber passing a stolen weapon astir erstwhile 1 of them fatally shot different successful the head, authorities say.

Denajah Bailey, 20, has been charged with third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, possessing an instrumentality of crime, and recklessly endangering different idiosyncratic successful transportation with the decease of 21-year-old Xavier Jeffers, the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office announced.

Amaury Sahad, 20, has been charged with receiving stolen property, firearms not to beryllium carried without a license, and possessing an instrumentality of crime.

On May 20, the 3 friends were successful Bailey's chamber astatine her location connected the 400 artifact of West Street successful Pottstown, Pennsylvania, authorities said. The country is astir 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

"[A]ll 3 were handling a firearm that was illegally obtained by Sahad," the DA's bureau added. When Bailey got clasp of the weapon, she "pointed the firearm astatine Jeffers portion she and Jeffers were connected her bed" and pulled the trigger, "shooting Jeffers successful the head."

A 4th idiosyncratic was seemingly witnesser to the incident, too, astatine slightest virtually. She told instrumentality enforcement that she was FaceTiming with Jeffers and saw the 3 friends passing the weapon astir and pretending to sprout each other, KYW Newsradio reported, citing tribunal documents.

Bailey and Jeffers were reportedly laughing erstwhile a gunshot could beryllium heard, the telephone fell to the floor, and Sahad said, "What did you do?"

Someone called 911 astir the "accidental shooting," and officers with the Pottstown Police Department responded to the home. When cops went to the backmost chamber of the home, they recovered Jeffers "suffering from a gunshot coiled to the near broadside of his head."

The DA's bureau said investigators recovered a loaded achromatic Glock 43X handgun from the chamber and that a cheque of the firearm's serial fig "found that it had been reported stolen" to the Philadelphia Police Department connected Dec. 30, 2025.

When Bailey spoke with police, she is said to person told them she pulled the trigger 2 different times that evening, with 1 of those being with the weapon pointed astatine her ain head, and thing happened.

Jeffers was pronounced dead, and an autopsy connected his assemblage done by the Montgomery County Coroner's Office "determined that the origin of decease was a gunshot coiled to the head/neck and the mode of decease was homicide."

Bailey and Sahad were arraigned successful court, with the erstwhile having a bail acceptable astatine $50,000 and the second having a bail acceptable astatine $20,000. "Both were besides ordered to person nary interaction with co-defendant and witnesses successful the case, arsenic good arsenic nary firearms," the DA's bureau said.

The defendants are scheduled to look successful tribunal for a preliminary proceeding connected June 9.

Both the suspects and the unfortunate were from Pottstown, authorities noted.