Toddler Dies After Mistaking Gun for Wii Controller

March 10, 2010— -- Mistaking a loaded gun for a video game controller, a 3-year-old in Tennessee accidentally shot and killed herself, officials said.

Cheyenne Alexis McKeehan of Norene, Tenn., shot herself Sunday night after her stepfather left his loaded Smith & Wesson handgun out on a table, Wilson County Sheriff Terry Ashe said.

Cheyenne's mother told police officers that the child was used to playing a shooting game with the Nintendo Wii video game console and likely confused the real gun with the realistic-looking black toy gun, the sheriff said.

"The unfortunate thing is that this Nintendo game called Wii had what looks like a solid black, basically automatic-looking type mechanism that operates the game," he said. "Unfortunately, the stepdad also had a .380 caliber black Smith & Wesson. The child was used to playing the video game."

Cheyenne's stepfather, Douglas Cronberger, 32, owned a semi-automatic pistol that he normally kept in a secure location, out of the reach of Cheyenne and the couple's 1-year-old child, Ashe said. But after taking it out to investigate a possible prowler, Cronberger left it on a table and forgot about it, officials said.

When Cheyenne fired the gun, Ashe said, her mother, Tina Ann Cronberger, 32, was within three feet of her child. Cheyenne was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.

"We're not looking at criminal intent," Ashe said, adding that no criminal charges have been filed. "There was a terrible lapse of judgment here."

He said that in his years in law enforcement, this wasn't the first tragedy he'd seen involving children and guns, but Cheyenne was the youngest victim he had seen.

"If you're a gun owner, you have to be responsible about how you store your weapon, especially if you have children," Ashe said. But he added that he hopes this incident causes others to be more careful with firearms in the home.

"I believe that something positive will come out of this -- that another family won't go through the heartbreak of this family," he said.