Savannah Leigh Brehm, 22, said she didn’t know a gun was sitting on her coffee table.
“I was taking care of my other child at the time. As he was leaving for work, he said he was going to put it up,” she said, referring to 19-year-old Keith Sturghill, another relative and the owner of the gun.
“I thought he did. I went back to my room,” she added.
Brehm said that while she was in another room, she heard a gun shot.
Her 5-year-old daughter had picked up the gun and fired it, shooting her 4-year-old son, Michael Ben Mendoza, and killing him.